Mistakes
by Sevlow
Summary: We all make mistakes that come back to haunt us.  WARNING: Graphic violence, character death
1. Blood

**((A/N: I wrote this for the LiveJournal group fma7sins for a "Zombie ****Apocalypse" ****contest that they're doing. I was really rushed with this--and BOY does it show—but I hope you'll enjoy it. It's all finished, but I want to do some last-minute editing, so hopefully I'll be able to post a chapter a day or more. **

**WARNINGS: Angst, character death, blood & guts, and ZOMBIES!!!))**

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Shots rang out over the city of Merka, but they could scarcely be heard over the angry roar of the rioting people that flooded into the streets in a pulsing throng, each waving machetes or pitchforks or whatever other dangerous instrument that they could find. The cold, drizzling night was illuminated by red-orange pillars of flames, casting the grim scene in a jerking, spasmodic light that made the shadows beyond dance and writhe like wounded beasts. Colonel Roy Mustang snapped his fingers, calling another plane of fire into existence and effectively containing the riled multitude in a blazing ring of light and heat.

Roy should have never sent the boys here. It had been a mistake. The district had been stewing in its own political unrest for years... the colonel should have known that the appearance of the Elric brothers might send the already incensed populous over the edge. It was like Liore all over again. Unfortunately, this time Ed and Al were still within the city when the rioting started and had been caught in the tumult of protesting and civil disobedience. Roy wasn't clear on exactly what Ed had done to cause such chaos, but when the colonel got the call from the Fullmetal Alchemist to send reinforcements... well, he just knew that something had gone horribly wrong.

Ed would never ask for help unless he absolutely had to, especially from Roy. Sensing the kid's unspoken urgency, the colonel had grabbed his staff and several willing soldiers and had booked it to Merka as quickly as he was able. Now—nearly ten hours later—they had finally arrived and the swirling anarchy had reached such a feverish pitch that it demanded immediate action.

"Sir!" Lieutenant Hawkeye called from her protective station at the colonel's side, her gun drawn and ready as her henna-colored eyes swept across the battlefield. "I see Alphonse!"

Roy followed the direction of her gaze until they landed upon the tall approaching figure. Al's armor shone like a beacon in the firelight, making him look like some sort of god or ethereal messenger as he strode forward slowly, his apparent calm a dizzying juxtaposition to the hellish chaos swarming around him.

"Cover me." He ordered her, drawing his own gun and moving swiftly forward to meet Alphonse, his eyes darting from side-to-side in case of an ambush. When the armored boy caught sight of him he started walking a little faster, but his steps were still very cautious and deliberate.

"Brother's hurt!" Al called out as the colonel got closer, his panicked voice echoing shrilly within his armor. "He's been stabbed!"

Roy cursed. "Where is he?"

"I have him." Al replied quickly, placing his huge metal hand on the breastplate of his armor. Only then did Roy see the blood that was seeping from between the crevices of Al's hollow chest cavity, drawing dark lines down the metal and soaking into the pale loincloth, staining it with huge blossoms of red. The colonel cursed again, then nodded to the boy.

"Let's get him to the car. Come with me."

Alphonse obeyed without question, very conscious of the delicate burden that he carried within him. He was loath to walk too fast and risk jostling his older brother. In spite of Alphonse's careful steps, though, Roy heard Ed give a sharp cry of pain as they approached the car.

"Hawkeye!" Roy called to his lieutenant, "Fullmetal's been injured, we need to get him to the medical van."

"Sir," she began as she backed over to him, her gun still turned on the crowd of rioters that was quickly being subdued by the other military personnel, "the van isn't here yet! They're still over an hour out."

Roy looked at Alphonse, then down to the streams of blood that were flowing from him, trying to think quickly. He turned and opened the car door, climbing into the back seat.

"Alphonse," he said, "Put him in here with me. Let me see how bad it is."

Al moved forward and unhooked his breastplate, removing it and tossing it aside. Al's chest cavity was darkly shadowed, but Roy could vaguely make out Edward's huddled form. He was curled into the fetal position with the side of his head resting against the back of Al's torso, the distant firelight making his only visible eye glow hauntingly yellow. His pained, labored breathing echoed eerily in his metal cradle and as Roy looked at him he slowly absorbed the massive amounts of blood that were splattered and smeared all over him and the interior of his brother.

Roy reached in cautiously and took Ed's automail arm, coaxing him out of the armor and into the back seat of the car as gently as he could. Ed shrieked as Al reached in and helped lift him out of his hollow chest, but the kid quickly bit his lip and tried to stay quiet as Roy pulled him down onto the seat and forced him to lay back.

The kid was absolutely covered in blood, Roy realized as he began to examine him. It was astounding that Ed was even still conscious. Ed's hand was up under his shirt, no doubt putting pressure on his wound as he panted rapidly through his pain.

"Ed? Can you hear me?" Roy asked, taking Ed's face in one hand. His ashen skin was cold and covered in a fine sheen of sweat that mingled with the smudged flecks of blood that marred the corner of his mouth.

Ed nodded slowly, a soft moan escaping his lips as he fought to keep his eyes open.

"Good." Roy encouraged him, "Stay awake for me, okay? I need to have a look at you." The colonel took off his gloves and put them in his pocket as he lifted up Ed's shirt, peeling the blood-soggy cloth from the boy's abdomen.

For a moment Roy wasn't quite sure what he was looking at. The masses of blood and the dimness of the car's interior combined into something that skewed his perception briefly, but then he realized what he was seeing and his stomach churned with alarm.

The injury was just below Edward's ribcage in the middle of his abdomen... and it was _big_. At the moment though, it was bleeding very little due to the fact that Ed had effectively plugged the gaping hole with his clenched fist. Edward's hand disappeared at the wrist into his own body, stopping the blood flow like a cork shoved into the mouth of a wine bottle. As horrifying as this sight was, Roy recognized that this was perhaps the only thing that had kept the young alchemist from bleeding to death already.

"Smart kid." Roy commented, trying very hard to keep his tone light even though his heart was thudding sickly within him.

"G-glad you approve." Ed managed to gasp faintly, a wry smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.

The colonel smiled back at him—more because he thought that he should rather than because he honestly felt the compulsion—and gently wrapped his fingers around Ed's wrist, telling the kid to relax his fist. Roy slowly eased Ed's hand out of the wound, pulling another sharp cry from him. Al moaned frantically as he looked upon his brother's torn form and turned his head from the sight, covering his eyes as the injury was revealed.

"Shh, shh... You're okay, Ed." Roy calmed the panting, trembling boy, even as the full impact of the wound's severity hit him like a sledgehammer to the chest. Roy had seen enough battles to know what a mortal wound looked like, and this one was bad.

It was very, very bad.

The gash in Ed's abdomen was perhaps three inches long and deep enough that Roy could actually see the kid's organs pulsing within him. The ragged hole in Ed's gut was like an open window to a nightmare world of twitching muscle and blood-slick intestines.

"Oh, this is just a scratch." the colonel lied loudly, looking down at Edward with an expression of false confidence, "I've had paper-cuts worse than this."

Ed closed his eyes and grinned at him again, his lips trembling as they formed a haunting smile. Ed wasn't stupid. He knew how bad the wound really was.

"Hawkeye, we can't wait for the van to get here." The colonel said, keeping his voice calm. "We need to drive... see if we can meet them halfway."

"Sir!" The lieutenant complied, rushing to the other side of the car and sliding into the driver's seat. "Alphonse, get into the passenger's seat. There isn't enough room for all three of you in the back." Alphonse did not hesitate to obey and hurriedly got in next to Hawkeye. The engine roared to life and the lieutenant gunned it, speeding past the crowds of people and the military personnel that were quickly containing them.

Roy looked back down at the wound, which was bleeding freely again now that the hole had been unplugged and was sending tiny, gushing rivers of red down Edward's bare sides. The colonel reached back into his pocket and fished out one of his alchemy gloves, pulling it on as he shifted to straddle Ed's legs, pinning them down.

"This is going to hurt, Edward." The colonel said softly after a moment's thought, "It's going to hurt a lot, so just try to bear it, okay?"

"What are you doing?" Al squeaked, trying to turn in his seat so that he could see them.

"Burning the wound shut." The colonel informed him grimly. "We have to get the bleeding to stop."

With his ungloved hand, Roy reached forward and pressed Ed's shoulder down onto the dark leather of the seat, restraining him against the agony that he was about to endure.

"Ready?" Roy asked him.

Ed reached up and gripped Roy's forearm desperately with his bloodied biological hand, bracing himself for the pain that he knew was coming. Teeth clenched, he steeled himself, his breath lurching from him in short, shallow gasps as he nodded for the colonel to begin.

Roy took a deep breath and clenched his jaw, pressing his fingers together and snapping deftly.

Ed threw his head back and screamed as the jet of fire kissed his skin, digging his nails into the colonel's arm as he thrashed beneath him frantically. His eyes flew open wide and his pupils contracted into sharp pinpoints of agony as he arched his back off of the blood-soaked seat and shrieked.

"Hold on, Ed..." Roy tried to soothe as he forced him back down onto the seat, doing his best to ignore the all too familiar reek of burning flesh as he called another spark to his fingertips. "I'm almost done..."

Ed's only reply was a harsh, screeching sob as he tensed and shuddered under the onslaught of Roy's fire. The kid turned his head and gagged, the pain too much for his already taxed body to handle as Roy finished sealing the last bit of the gash. 

"That's it, kid. I'm done." Roy said, still trying valiantly to keep his voice light as if he had done nothing more serious than pull a splinter from the boy's finger.

The burn was solid and held back the blood flow as much as Roy had hoped that it would. Now at least the kid was not going to bleed out. In the long run though, Roy wasn't sure how much it would matter. If Ed was bleeding internally—which he almost certainly was—then there was nothing that the colonel could do about it. At most, Roy had just bought the young alchemist some time... hopefully long enough for them to rendezvous with the approaching medic van.

He let Ed go, doing his best to hide the fact that his hands were trembling as he backed up off of him. Edward gasped and whimpered, his entire body twitching with little tremors of bodily trauma as he tried to roll over onto his side.

"No, lie still." the colonel ordered him, taking his arm again and making him lie flat on his back. Roy took off the jacket of his uniform and rolled it up, raising Ed's head enough to slip it under him. The least he could do was try to make the kid more comfortable. "Better?"

Ed looked up at him blearily and gave a tiny, jerking nod. He did not look good. His complexion was entirely bloodless and his eyes were glassy with shock and pain. His lips trembled as he sucked in air desperately, unable to get enough oxygen in spite of his rapid gasping.

Edward abruptly tossed his head to the side and coughed hard, spattering the back of the seat with a fine spray of blood. He gasped again and choked on the red fluid, sending him into another coughing fit that left him shaking, his eyelids fluttering weakly. Roy froze, watching a thick trail of blood crawl from the corner of the boy's mouth and drip down the side of his face. This was bad. Ed's lung must have been grazed by whatever he'd been stabbed with, and if that was the case then he didn't have long at all.

With a trembling hand, Ed reached up and wiped the blood from his mouth, then stared at the redness that dyed his fingers. His golden eyes snapped over to look at the colonel, silently asking a question that he did not have the strength to ask aloud.

"Is he going to die?"

Al asked softly, voicing his brother's unspoken words.

"No." Roy said flatly, not taking his eyes off of Ed, "Of course not. Don't be stupid. Just turn around and help the lieutenant watch for the medic."

Al hesitated, but then obediently turned back to the road. Ed looked at his colonel for a moment and then shook his head.

"_Liar_." he whispered, displaying his blood-daubed teeth in a wry smirk that looked more like a grimace than a smile. Roy sighed and clenched his jaw again, not having any sort of reply to that. Ed's smile faltered and died on his lips as he tried to suppress the urge to cough up more blood, his throat heaving and twitching with the strain. In spite of his efforts, though, another mouthful of redness bubbled up from between his lips and spilled down across his cheek, the bright color making his skin look even paler by contrast.

The colonel ghosted his hand forward, silently offering it to the boy to hold if he needed it.

In Ishbal, a soldier had died in Roy's arms. The then-major hadn't even known the private's name, but as the only person that hadn't been killed or injured when the bomb went off, Mustang had felt it his duty to comfort the bleeding, writhing man on the ground before him. There was nothing else that he could have done. Roy just held his hand and talked to him, even when the man was far beyond being able to hear him anymore. And now Roy felt the same obligation to Edward. Even if Ed didn't like to admit it, he was part of Colonel Mustang's staff and Roy cared for him just as much as he cared for Lieutenant Hawkeye or any of his other men.

Ed glanced at the offered hand and took it slowly, closing his eyes as Roy squeezed his fingers.

"Keep your eyes open, Ed." Roy said quietly. "We'll meet the van soon, just stay awake."

Ed obeyed without comment or expression, staring up at the ceiling of the car as they sped down the highway. Feeling eyes upon him, Roy lifted his head and saw Hawkeye looking back at him through her rearview mirror. She raised her eyebrows at him and he looked away quickly, uncomfortable under her questioning gaze. He turned his eyes back onto the gasping child beneath his hands.

They both knew that they were going to lose him.

As if this thought had been spoken aloud, Ed stiffened and pulled his hand from Roy's grasp, reaching instead for his younger brother.

"I'm s-sorry, Al... I—" Ed managed gratingly, but then with a soft keening, choking sound his body relaxed, his hand falling back down onto the leather seat. Edward Elric went limp and his eyelids slid half-closed over his emptied gaze as one last shuddering exhalation escaped from his lips. As Roy watched, the light in his yellow eyes died like candles being snuffed by a cold wind.

And then there was silence.

The colonel froze. That's it? After all this time, _that's_ how it was going to end?

No.

No, no, no... He couldn't accept that. They could still save him. Quickly, he tilted Ed's head back and held the kid's nose, leaning forward to press his mouth to Ed's and force air into his unmoving lungs.

"Hawkeye, pull over!" He ordered breathlessly as he straightened and compressed Ed's chest with his open palms. There wasn't enough room in back seat of the car for Roy to give mouth-to-mouth effectively. He needed to get the kid out on the ground.

"Sir..."

"DO IT, LIEUTENANT!" he roared.

The car swerved into the muddy grass beside the road. Roy hardly waited for it to stop before he jumped out and ran to the other side.

"What's going on?" Al asked frantically as the colonel opened the other door and gathered Ed in his arms. The colonel hit his knees in the mud and put Ed on the ground, pressing his lips once more to Ed's and filling his lungs. He sat up and pushed on the kid's frail chest in a violent rhythm, trying desperately to coax the motionless body back into life.

"Damn it, Fullmetal!" He barked at him, "Come on!"

Ed did not respond. Roy cursed and pumped air into him again before compressing his chest so hard that he swore he could feel Ed's ribs cracking beneath his hands.

"Colonel..." Hawkeye said softly as she crouched beside him.

"Breathe, Ed. Come on." Roy panted distractedly, tasting the coppery invasion of Ed's blood in his mouth as he ignored his lieutenant and went through the steps again. Hold. Blow. Press. One, two, three...

"Sir..."

Hold. Blow. Press. One, two, three...

"He's gone, Roy..."

"I KNOW, alright?!" He shouted, rounding on her. Her eyes were large and powerful as she looked at him, startled but unwilling to back down from the anger in his voice. After a beat he sighed and rubbed his temple with one hand, streaking the side of his face with blood. "I know..." he said again, looking away from her defeatedly.

She put her hand on his shoulder, but he wrenched away from her and got to his feet, stalking back over to the car. He pressed his hands against the cold metal and leaned against it, his head bent as he collected himself.

"He... he's dead?"

Roy raised his head to look at Al. The metal boy was still standing next to the passenger-side door, staring down at his brother's lifeless body in shock.

"Yeah. Yeah, he's dead." Roy told him, turning away again. There was silence for a moment, then Roy slammed his fist into the side of the car with a muffled scream of anguished frustration. Pain shot up his arm and he clenched his teeth against it, closing his eyes tightly with a soft grunt. He took a breath and straightened himself, holding his throbbing hand against his chest. He looked down and caught sight of his jacket lying on the ground beside the car. It had no doubt tumbled out of the door when the colonel had grabbed Ed.

Roy reached down and picked it up, walking past the still-dumbstruck Alphonse to drape it over Ed's body, shrouding it in the dark blue cloth. The colonel expressionlessly lifted the covered body from the dank ground and walked back toward the car with it, cradling it as he would an infant. He approached Alphonse and offered his burden to him, holding it out as the boy hesitantly took his dead brother in his arms.

"Sit in the back with him, if you want." Roy said, then turned from him and got into the passenger's seat. Al slowly did as he was told, squeezing into the back carefully as he held Ed against him.

After a few moments, Hawkeye got into the driver's seat. She didn't make any moves to start the car, for there was no reason to drive now. They could wait for the medical van. The patient no longer needed immediate aid, so there was no point in rushing forward. All Ed needed from them now was a body bag.

"How's your hand?" Hawkeye asked after a long pause, breaking the silence inside of the car.

"I think I broke it." Roy answered her dully in a near-whisper.

In the back seat Al started weeping quietly.


	2. The Moth and The Flame

The funeral had been nice. Not as nice as Hughes', but still nice.

Colonel Mustang stood over the tombstone, alone in the empty cemetery and wondering faintly why he always seemed to be the last person to leave funerals.

The tombstone before him read:

_**Lieutenant Colonel Edward Elric**_

_**The Fullmetal Alchemist and Hero of The People**_

_**1899-1915**_

Roy smirked derisively and shook his head. Ed probably would have hated the tombstone... more than that, he probably would have hated—as the tombstone noted—that he had been promoted a rank because he had died trying to quell an uprising against the military. No one mentioned that the kid had most likely sparked that very uprising.

Ed's body had not been buried yet. It wasn't going to be buried here in Central at all, but sent back to Resembool in a few days so that he could rest in his family's plot. Both Al and the Rockbells had been furious to hear that they couldn't take Ed's body home immediately, but it was military tradition to hold services in Central and keep unburied bodies in the crypt for several days before letting their loved ones take them. It was a stupid, pointless tradition in Roy's eyes, but there was little that he could do about it. The military always had been a stickler for tradition.

So, really, the tombstone at Mustang's feet was more of a monument than a grave marker. Still, Roy felt the need to pay his respects to it even though Ed's actual remains were several yards behind him in the crypt, quietly decomposing.

Roy wanted to say something. He often visited Maes Hughes' grave and talked to him—not that he really believed that his friend was somehow hearing him from beyond the Void, but sometimes it made him feel better... but now with Ed, he didn't know what to say. The words just wouldn't come.

Finally, the colonel just sighed and put his hands in his pockets, wincing slightly as he jarred the splint that held his broken hand in place.

"See you around, kiddo." He mumbled, then turned and walked back to the car where Hawkeye was waiting for him.

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It had become fairly quiet around the office. Not that Colonel Mustang really minded, for the silence was a stark contrast to the noisy chaos that usually inhabited these four walls... but it was also a little unnerving. He understood that his staff was still in mourning over Edward's passing—the funeral had only been the day before, after all—but Roy wordlessly wished that everything would just hurry up and go back to normal as if nothing had happened. He wished that Fuery would stop bursting into tears every five minutes... he wished that Havoc would stop getting up from his seat to pace the room agitatedly like a caged animal... but mostly Roy wished that Hawkeye would stop watching him out of the corner of her eye as if she thought that he was going to explode at any moment.

Hawkeye knew that Roy did not mourn well. That is to say, he _didn't_ mourn. He would bury himself in work and other activities so that he didn't have time to mourn and then, when the grief was far enough away, he'd allow himself to reflect on it over a bottle of scotch. Typically, by the time he'd recovered from his hangover the next morning, he was more at peace with whatever tragedy he'd been faced with. Sometimes—more often than not, truthfully—it would take multiple sessions of heavy drinking over the course of a month or two for Roy to deal with his grief. He still found himself drinking with a heavy heart occasionally as he reminisced about Hughes, but Roy honestly thought that he would never fully get over _that_ death.

The colonel knew that when he finally did allow himself to mourn for Ed, it was going to be bad and it was going to take him a long time to recover. But for the time being, he kept his grief securely behind a locked door in the back of his mind. He wasn't ready to face it yet.

Besides, he had a lot of paperwork to do and his broken hand was making it very difficult for him to make much headway.

"Do we have the Ingram files from Investigations yet?" he asked, raising his head to meet Hawkeye's concerned gaze. She quickly made her face carefully blank.

"Not yet, sir." she told him. "Major Higgins wanted to bring them over himself and discuss it with you face-to-face."

"Ah, yes." Mustang nodded, remembering. "When is his appointment? Four thirty, right?"

"I think so. Check your calendar to be sure."

He nodded to her again, pulling his date-book from a drawer and flipping through it until he found today's date. He slid his finger down the list of bullet-point objectives that he had to finish today and paused when he came upon a certain name. He stared at the name for a moment, feeling a brief stab of irritation... but then that ire quickly dissolved into a sick sadness that caught his breath and made his heart lurch unpleasantly in his chest.

"Sir?"

Roy raised his head slowly to look up at her. He could tell from her expression that she knew something was wrong—be it the suddenly wan pallor of his face that alerted her or the fact that he stopped breathing for a moment, Roy didn't know. Either way, ever-perceptive Hawkeye had seen the sick jolt run through him and wanted to know what it was.

"...Weirdest thing just happened." he said, managing a shaky, mystified laugh as he looked back down at his date-book. "I just realized that Fullmetal was due to give a report today at noon... and my first thought was: 'That little bastard is late _again_.' I guess I still can't believe that he's really dead." He shook his head wonderingly, running his thumb over the dead boy's name.

The colonel's throat constricted suddenly and he clenched his jaw, his vision blurring. He bent his head forward as if the weight of reality were dragging him down, slamming into him and knocking the breath from his lungs like a wave in a tempest.

"My hand hurts, Lieutenant." he mumbled to her as he stood up quickly and headed for the door, his voice breaking in spite of his best efforts to hide this sudden onslaught of grief. He knew that he wasn't fooling anyone, as his staff members were all staring at him now with identical expressions of pity. "I'm going home. Cancel my appointments."

He exited the room without waiting for a reply, rushing down the hallway as he desperately tried to regain control over his emotions.

"Colonel, wait!"

He cursed and walked faster, furtively wiping his eyes as he heard Hawkeye's quickened footsteps approaching. He felt a firm grip on his arm and allowed her to stop him. She turned him around to face her and looked up at him sadly. He kept his gaze averted from hers, embarrassed by the tears that he was only barely able to keep from spilling from his eyes. He knew without looking at her how concerned and sympathetic her face was.

"You forgot your keys." she said quietly, taking his uninjured hand in hers and placing the keys gently in his open palm.

"...Thanks." he replied after a moment, a soft, bitter smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as finally looked at her.

"Go get some rest, sir." the lieutenant told him, returning his smile faintly. "Just... don't do anything stupid."

He snorted amusedly at that. "Define 'stupid'."

She sighed and squeezed his hand. "Just be safe. I'll call you later tonight."

Roy's smile evaporated slowly and he nodded. "Yeah."

She squeezed his hand again and turned from him, walking back to the office with her shoulders back and her carriage erect; forever a soldier, forever trying to protect her colonel... from the world and from himself. He watched her go, half-wishing that she'd turn around and come back. He shook his head, wiped his eyes again, and exited the building without a backward glance.

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Roy leaned back against the wall and tilted his head up, drunkenly watching a moth batter itself against the streetlamp outside his window. The thing's tiny grey body hit the smooth glass with a gentle, yet persistent _plink, plink, plink_ that—while annoying—was not so annoying that Roy felt the urge to get up and shut the window.

He wasn't quite sure how he'd ended up on the floor next to his liquor cabinet... but he didn't really care, either. He wasn't uncomfortable and he had plenty of alcohol within arm's-reach, so what was the point of moving back to the couch? Getting up sounded like too much effort and the floor was fine for now. He could sit here forever, enjoying his scotch, watching the moth, and resolutely _not_ thinking about Edward Elric.

The first thing that he'd done when he'd gotten home was pour himself three fingers of scotch. Then he'd sat down on his couch calmly, putting the glass on the coffee table in front of him. Then he'd lowered his head slowly into his hands and sobbed like a child.

He'd quieted himself quickly, but he knew that that tiny breakdown was only the first of many that he would be experiencing that night. He wasn't crying at the moment, though. He didn't even feel like crying. In fact, he felt pretty damn good. He was absolutely _hammered_ and it felt fucking great, not to mention that his injured hand—which had been throbbing quite painfully all day—scarcely hurt at all. Roy loved alcohol—so much so that it actually worried him sometimes... but now was not the time for such thoughts. He knew that his mood was probably going to swing downward again soon, so he might as well enjoy his euphoria while it lasted... and it never lasted long.

The phone rang, filling Roy's chamber with its tinny, resounding voice. Roy looked over at it sitting on the end table next to the couch and promptly decided that it was too far away to bother with. The lieutenant had already called three times to check on him and had even offered to come over and drink with him... but he politely refused her. He wanted very much to be alone right now. That, and Roy was a lightweight in comparison to her. He had never seen her get more than a little tipsy and by the time she'd called at six 'o clock, Roy was already well on his way to being completely trashed. The last thing he needed right now was for her to soberly witness his drunken misery and the cathartic vomiting that was very likely to happen afterward. Thanks, but no thanks.

Instead he gave his attentions back to the moth, idly thinking that if the definition of insanity was "repeating an action over and over again and expecting a different result each time," then moths must be fucking _crazy_.

"But who isn't a little crazy these days?" he asked the moth companionably, talking over the ringing of the telephone, "We all do stupid, insane, _horrible_ things from time to time... so who the fuck am I to judge?"

The moth, of course, gave no reply.

"I mean, look at me..." Roy continued, pressing his nearly-empty scotch glass to his lower lip, "I'm talking to a goddamned moth for crying out loud... I _must_ be crazy."

Roy laughed at himself quietly and took a sip of his drink, savoring the smoothness of the amber liquid as it slid over his tongue. He _was_ crazy, and every one he knew was probably just as cracked. Maes had been crazy about his family. Riza was crazy about her job. Fullmetal had been crazy about... well, he had just been crazy.

The colonel took another long pull at his drink as the bloodied image of Edward swam into his head, tainting the edges of his mind a violent red and stealing the bitter humor from his dark thoughts.

The boys should have never been sent to Merka. It was poor judgment on Roy's part, and now those poor kids were paying for it... Ed with his life and Al with his eternal grief. Roy couldn't even imagine what must be going on in Alphonse's head. His only family had been taken from him and now there was no way for him to return to his body; his journey was over. The Elric brothers had failed their quest and it was Roy's fault. By sending them to Merka so ill informed about the socio-political state of the district, Colonel Mustang had—in effect—killed Edward himself.

The phone stopped ringing finally, but the grating sound of those bells echoed in the room for a moment longer and emphasized the lack of life within the chamber. Roy suddenly felt very alone. He drew his legs up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, resting his cheek against his knee. How could he have been so blind? So careless?

His eyes misted over and he closed them, hating himself and the world that he lived in. It wasn't fair. The world had taken so much from Ed and Al... and when they had tried to take something back, the world just took more. When did they get to have something in return? Where was Equivalent Exchange when the odds were in their favor? If only Roy could take Edward back from the all-consuming Void, then the balance would return and everything would equalize...

If only...

Roy paused and slowly raised his head, his eyes wandering intoxicatedly over to the closet on the other side of the room. Within the closet was a small box that had been alchemically sealed and hadn't been opened in years. Roy hadn't intended to _ever_ open it again, but what if...

"No." Roy said aloud, shaking himself. He could not allow himself to possess such thoughts while so inebriated, for he might actually be swayed to carry them out. He downed the last of his drink in one tragic gulp, dispelling his half-baked thought processes. Ed was dead and nothing could change that.

The phone rang again suddenly, jerking Roy from his bleak musings and sending his heart into a startled rhythm. He recovered himself and sighed loudly. Hawkeye again, no doubt. He really should answer it... it was still early enough in the night that she knew that he was still awake, and if he let it keep ringing she might be inspired to physically come over and check on him... and he certainly didn't want that.

So, with a groan, Roy braced himself against the wall and hauled himself to his feet. He swayed there for a moment, trying to get his bearings in the suddenly spinning room. He lurched forward drunkenly, banging his knee against the corner of the coffee table and eliciting a loud curse from his lips. _That_ was certainly going to hurt in the morning. He made it to the couch and fell back onto the cushions gracelessly, deciding superfluously that the soft, overstuffed fabric really _was_ much more comfortable than the hard wooden floor.

The phone rang again, reminding Roy of why he'd ventured back to the couch in the first place. He looked at it stupidly for a moment, then grabbed it and put it to his ear.

"I thought I told you to stop calling me." He said into the receiver, trying very hard not to sound as drunk as he actually was.

There was a long pause from the other end of the phone line, then a small voice spoke up, "Colonel Mustang? It's Alphonse Elric..."

"Oh. Alphonse." Roy said, a little taken off-guard. "Sorry... I thought you were someone else."

"It's okay. Did I wake you? You sound tired."

"I'm not tired... I'm just really drunk."

There was another long pause from Alphonse. It occurred to Roy that this was probably a little shocking to the boy who had only seen the colonel in the office, soberly dressed in his military best... it must be odd for him to imagine the stoic Flame Alchemist at home alone, drinking away his sorrows. But, to be honest, Roy didn't really give a flying fuck about what Al thought of him at the moment.

"Sorry to call you at home," the kid began again, "but I'm in the dorm going through some of the stuff that Ed kept here... There are a lot of books and theorems in some of the boxes, but they're way too advanced for me to ever use. I just wanted to know if you'd like to have them."

Roy opened his mouth to reply, but then shut it again. He felt as if he'd swallowed a block of ice as a cold, solid weight dropped into the pit of his stomach. His vision blurred again and he worked his jaw to hold back the abrupt urge to weep.

"...Colonel? You still there?"

"I'm here." he whispered, only barely able to force the words past the tightness in his throat. "And yeah... yeah, I'll stop by tomorrow if you want."

"Okay. Sounds good."

Roy bit his lip, unsure of what else to say. There were so many words fighting for dominance on the tip of his tongue, but all of them were too painful to actually voice. Still, the words clamored around inside him violently, threatening to tear him apart if he didn't say _something_...

"I'm so sorry, Alphonse." he blurted finally, his words deeply lamenting and a little slurred by drink. "I've failed you. You and Ed both... and I can never make it right again. I should have never put you in that situation..."

"...I don't blame you, sir." Alphonse said softly, sounding entirely too old and tired for his young years. "We've been in worse situations countless times... this time our luck just ran out. It wasn't anybody's fault. It just... happened. And I know—" Al stopped for a moment, falling silent on the line as if to collect himself before continuing, "I know how hard you tried to save him after he got hurt. I understand that there was nothing more that you could have done."

"If I had just been there sooner..."

"You got there as fast as you could. Besides... it really doesn't matter now... There's no point in dwelling on 'if only'. It's over."

God, he sounded so grown up. Almost like a parent admonishing his child.

"If there's anything that I can do for you... anything at all..."

"I know. I'll call. See you tomorrow, sir."

Roy meant to wish the boy good night or to bid him some other form of polite adieu, but what spilled from his mouth then was decidedly not that. Scotch was one of the few things that could loosen Colonel Mustang's tongue, and unfortunately he'd had a lot of scotch that night. As drunk as he was, though, he still recognized that his words carried a terrible, dire weight that once said could not be retracted. And even as he was speaking he knew that he should just shut his mouth and keep his thoughts to himself... but he plowed on anyway, unable to stop.

"I can bring him back." Roy said, the syllables spilling from his mouth like a poison.

"...Excuse me?"

Roy licked his lips and half-considered just telling the boy goodbye and hanging up on him, but the words had been said and the offer had been made. He would not back down now.

"I... I can resurrect him, Alphonse. I know how."

A cold silence flooded the phone line then, flowing around Roy's heart and encasing it in a frozen mass. When Al finally spoke his words were slow and very precise, clearly biting back some terrible emotion than might have been anger or anguish.

"No. You can't. I can't, either. No one can."

"No, listen... I can—"

"Colonel, I understand that you've been drinking and that you might not know what you're saying..." Al interrupted, his voice tight with quiet injury, "but you're wrong. In case you've forgotten, Ed and I tried to resurrect someone once... There was no way for us to give enough of ourselves up to account for Equivalent Exchange. It can't be done."

"Yes, it can. I... I have ways around the laws of equivalency. I really can do it, I swear."

"...Goodbye, sir."

"Alphonse, wait! I—"

_Click._

Roy exhaled and lowered the phone, gently placing it back on the hook. Well, that certainly could have gone better... not that he really blamed the kid for not believing him. He leaned back against the couch and rolled his head to the side, his eyes once more landing on the closet and imagining the nightmarish treasure within. Was he really willing to delve this deeply into human transmutation? Sure, the thought had fleetingly crossed his mind many times since the young prodigy had gasped his last breath... but the thoughts hadn't been serious until now... hadn't been really _real_ until he'd said the words aloud.

Then again, he was very drunk and these thoughts were best entertained soberly. With some effort, he pushed the idea to the back of his mind and lurched to his feet.

He needed another drink.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

It was dark inside the closet.

The thin, pale light that crept in from the crack under the door was just enough to illuminate a tiny metal box in the corner. The box's smooth rectangular surface was caked with years'-worth of undisturbed dust, but the ornate alchemical drawings sprawled all over the lid could still be seen faintly under the grey layers of time.

Within the box, folded inside of a yellowed scrap of newspaper that documented part of the Eastern Rebellion, was a ring.

The ring's band was tarnished and dull, but the stone set into the middle of it was still as bright and smooth as the day it was installed. The dark stone glowed suddenly red, pulsing briefly as if it knew that its owner was thinking about it. But then it went dark again, still and silent in its tiny prison.

It was waiting.


	3. He Could Have Just Asked

Alphonse finished taping up the last box and sighed. He was sitting on the floor with the heavy cardboard container in front of him, preparing to ship it to Resembool. He could have just waited until he made the journey himself in three days' time, but he'd have more precious cargo to worry about then and so opted to mail the four boxes of Ed's things rather than carry them on the train. Winry and Pinako were already on their way back to Resembool preparing for another, more intimate funeral for Ed when Al came home with the body, so they'd likely be there to accept the packages when they arrived.

There really wasn't a whole lot that Ed and Al had kept in the dorm that they used while in Central, but there were a few things. The Elric brothers had mainly used the dorm to store books and novelties that they'd come across on their travels, as they were unable to carry them around as they wandered the country in search of the Philosopher's Stone. Many of the items had already been packed haphazardly in boxes, but Al had taken his time and gone through everything the night before, sorting it out and repacking it so that he could ship it out that morning.

One box remained unsealed in the emptied room. It was filled with things that Al had planned to donate to Central Library, but had set it aside in the hopes that Mustang might take some of it. It wasn't much, but Al thought that the colonel should have something of Ed's to remember him by. As much as they had been at each other's throats in the past four years, Ed and the colonel had still been a huge part of each other's lives and Al knew that Mustang did care for both of the boys, even if he wasn't particularly fond of showing it.

Al was kind of half-dreading Mustang's arrival at the dorm, though... as much as the armored boy knew that the colonel had just been ranting drunkenly on the phone the night before, his words had opened old wounds. For just a split second Al was a little boy again, blindly hoping that alchemy could bring his loved one back to him... but then his logic and his heavy-hearted memory reminded him that Ed was never coming back. He was dead, and there was nothing that anyone could do to change that.

A knock at the door roused Al from his bleak thoughts and he got to his feet slowly, his joints creaking and clattering as he stood. He unlatched the door and opened it, unsurprised to see the colonel standing behind it.

"Good morning, Alphonse." the man said, his voice professional and polite as if this were any other day. He was dressed immaculately in his uniform, as he was no doubt stopping by on his way to work. He stood erect and powerful, his expressionless face as hard and even as his voice. The only visible signs of Mustang's temporary weakness the night before displayed themselves in the form of dark circles under his bloodshot eyes and a pale, almost greenish pallor to his cheeks. He was probably in the clutches of one nasty hangover, but he was hiding it admirably.

"Good morning, sir." Alphonse greeted him in return, likewise pretending that much of last night's conversation hadn't happened. "The box is over here if you want to go through it. Whatever you don't take is going to the library... I'm sure they'll get more use out of it than I ever would."

Mustang nodded mutely and knelt beside the box, reaching in a gloved hand to pull out a book. He looked at the cover and smirked wryly. It was a book on advanced combustible and fire alchemy. Ed had bought it shortly after his assessment battle with Mustang in the vain hope that he'd be able to take the art up as easily as he had mineral alchemy. He had entertained ideas of being able to take Mustang on in his own art form but, needless to say, Ed had only managed to accidentally set a few things on fire—including himself—before getting angrily frustrated and giving up altogether.

"I actually used to have a copy of this..." Mustang said wonderingly, opening the book and scanning over the pages. "It was one of the first higher-level alchemy books I ever studied."

Al moved to look at the book over Mustang's shoulder, watching the man read the little notes that Ed had scrawled in the margins:

_**This can't be as hard as it looks... can it?**_

_**Fire is stupid... entirely too fickle in itself. Stick to combustible minerals to control it?**_

_**What the hell does that jerk make his gloves out of?!**_

Mustang smiled to himself and shook his head. "He could have just asked." He said quietly, flipping through the pages again.

Al laughed softly at that. "You really think that Brother could have swallowed his pride enough to do that?"

The colonel closed the book with a sigh and set it aside. "No, I guess not." Mustang reached in and lifted the next book out of the box. "...About last night..." he began abruptly, looked down at the book sadly and running his fingers over the embossed cover. "I owe you an apology."

Al stiffened a little. "No, it's okay. You don't have to apologize."

"It's _not _okay, Alphonse. Saying those things to you was unspeakably cruel and I'm sorry. I was upset and... not thinking clearly, but that's no excuse."

"...I understand, sir."

Mustang looked at him for a moment then nodded, turning back to the box gloomily and for a moment Al could see through his stoic exterior. It was only a brief flash, but Al saw the pain and sorrow that weighed on the colonel and the sight tore at his very soul. But then Mustang's expression hardened again and he rubbed his exhausted-looking eyes with one hand. Alphonse sighed and crouched down next to him, wanting to put a hand on his shoulder but knowing better than to do anything so intimate. He was sure that Mustang would not appreciate the gesture.

Instead, he watched the colonel sort through the contents of the box. Mustang set aside the fire alchemy book and a few others that piqued his interest, but most of the books remained in the box, destined to grace the shelves of Central Library.

"What did you mean?" Al asked out of the blue, startling himself with the abruptness of his own question. He hadn't meant to ask the question aloud, but it slipped from him like a wriggling fish from a careless hand.

"I'm sorry?" Mustang asked blankly, craning his head to look up at Al.

"Last night when... when you said that you had ways around Equivalent Exchange... What did you mean by that?"

Mustang's words from the night before had been running through Al's head all morning. They had struck him savagely, giving him a tiny, inexplicable hope even though he kept telling himself that there was no way to trump that divine Law. But, still, optimism gripped him... he just needed to know.

The colonel worked his jaw and looked away, suddenly uncomfortable. "I don't recall saying that. I was _very_ drunk, I was probably just babbling."

"Oh." Al intoned, a little surprised by how disappointed he felt. "You just sounded so convinced that I thought maybe..."

He trailed off. Maybe what? Maybe they could actually bring Ed back if Mustang had been telling the truth about his Law-breaking loophole? Maybe they could do a successful human transmutation that would reassemble the recently shattered pieces of Al's life? No. Of course not. Ridiculous. Al felt stupid and childish for even entertaining such thoughts.

Mustang had raised his head again and was watching Al mull over his thoughts. Al knew that he had no real facial expressions, but Brother had told him that he emitted a kind of emotional aura that was just as good as a smile or a frown. Ed could almost always tell what Al was feeling because of this, and anyone who had been around Al for a while usually picked up on the aura as well. And judging from the way Mustang was chewing his lip uncertainly, the colonel could feel his disappointment, too.

"I'm lying." Mustang admitted at length. "I do remember saying that."

"...And?" Al prompted him, a little ashamed of the raw hope in his voice.

"And I do have a way around it... I have a red stone, Alphonse."

If Al had had a heart, it would have stopped for a beat when Mustang said those words.

"Do... do you really think that you could resurrect Brother with it?

"Well, it isn't a real Philosopher's Stone..." the colonel said quickly, "but theoretically..."

"_Theoretically_, could you do it?"

"...I think so. Yes."

Mustang's eyes were piercing and intense as he got to his feet, pinning Al with his level gaze as he waited for the armored boy to ask the question that the colonel knew was on the tip of his non-existent tongue.

"...W-would you... I mean, are you willing...?"

"Yes." the man whispered, sounding short for breath. Mustang was not just willing; he wanted this. He wanted it so badly that his excitement flowed off of him like waves of electricity. It was almost painful to see that sick yearning in his pallid face, though Al knew without a doubt that he was giving off that same dark sort of desire.

"Okay." Al said, trying to sound more composed than he actually was. "Then let's do it."


	4. Soul

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

It was cold in the crypt. That was hardly surprising given the fact that crypts were supposed to be cold to preserve the bodies longer, but Roy still shivered under his black traveling cloak, almost envying Al's unfeeling body as they walked down the short flight of steps into the frigid building.

It was nearly one in the morning, but Al and Roy had both agreed that doing this in the dead of night was perhaps the best. The last thing that they needed was for someone to walk in on their little experiment. And it _was_ just an experiment. Roy made that very clear to Alphonse before they started making any sort of plans regarding Ed's resurrection. This had never been successfully done before and, though Roy had had some marginally successful attempts at bringing rats back to life, this was completely different.

When he'd experimented with the rats, Roy had learned three things:

One: It is impossible to appease Equivalent Exchange when creating an entirely new body for the person/thing being resurrected, evenwiththe red stone. This was the biggest mistake that Ed and Al had made when attempting to bring their mother back. It was much more energy and mass effective to use the person's vacant corpse as a base instead. Unfortunately, the Elric brothers had not had the luxury of a corpse to start with and _that_ had been their ultimate downfall according to Roy's theoretical research.

Two: Being brought back to life is painful. When the body is reanimated, it needs to purge itself of the bacteria and decay that has settled within it since its death. The longer it has been dead, the more intense the purging. For the body to come fully back to life, it needs to rebuild itself on the inside once the decay has been worked out and this was all extremely unpleasant for the subject. Suffice it to say, Roy had not known that rats could scream until this part of the experiment.

Three: The person/thing's soul needed to be within the corpse _before_ attempting to bring the body back to life. If done the other way around, the body will refuse the soul and not come fully alive. Sure, it would move around and even attempt to eat—although, inexplicably, the re-animated rats tried to eat the other rats instead of their actual food—but the body wasn't really alive. There was no heartbeat and very little brain activity... not to mention the fact that the animated corpses continued to decay. Most of the rats finally stopped moving after a day or two, returning to their truly-dead state, but one of Roy's rats simply refused to die. After about four days of observing the undead rat, Roy had finally decided to put it out of its misery, but found his usual means of euthanasia to be resoundingly unsuccessful. The thing didn't breathe, so asphyxiation didn't work and a lethal dose of morphine also yielded no result. Lost on what else to do, Roy had bemusedly decapitated it... and _that_ had worked beautifully.

It had been years and years since Roy had last toyed with the alchemic concepts of mortality, but he still remembered quite a bit of it. He'd spent days locked in his study, unable to sleep and forgetting to eat as he tried to find a way to atone for his sins in Ishbal using the very tool that he'd committed those sins with.

The red stone ring.

Roy had gone through many attempts to duplicate the stone and strengthen it for his own purposes, but all such endeavors had been failures. The ring was not powerful enough to return all the souls that he had slain and he finally accepted that a long time ago... but maybe _one_ life could be returned...? He'd been able to use it on the rats without much difficulty, although he'd remained very wary of over-using it. The ring had limits, but there was really no way for him to predict when those limits would be reached. Luckily, Maes Hughes had knocked some sense into Roy before the ring had a chance to backfire and the self-loathing alchemist had quickly locked up the ring and shoved it into the back of a closet, hoping to forget about it.

But—as was proved by Roy's current presence in a crypt with the ring firmly wrapped around his finger—he had never forgotten the thing entirely. It had always been lurking in the back of his mind, tempting him. After Hughes' death, he had been so close to slipping back down in to his alchemical abyss, thinking that maybe his best friend could be brought back... but Riza Hawkeye had inadvertently talked him out of it. Now, though, he was not alone in his yearnings. Alphonse wanted this, too, and that was the deciding factor for Roy. He had Alphonse's blessing and that was all he needed to push forward.

They could do this.

Roy raised his flashlight, illuminating the of stone-and-cement shelves lining the walls and the smooth coffins that were housed therein. The room smelled of earth and the heady perfume of incense, but underlying it all was the unforgettable reek of death and Roy shuddered at the all too familiar stench. Roy's breath left his lips as a pale fog in the cold room, but he tried to ignore his rising discomfort as he scanned the cheap temporary nameplates that labeled each casket.

"I found him." Al said quietly from the opposite wall. Roy turned and Alphonse pointed to a shelf, identifying the casket that held the body of his older brother. Indeed, the plaque bolted to the side of the smallish coffin did read _"Lieutenant Colonel Edward Elric"_ as Roy stepped closer.

"This is it, then." Mustang stated, his voice strong even though his insides were clenched with anxiety. "If you want to back out and forget this, now is your last chance, Alphonse."

Al looked down at the colonel for a moment. When he spoke, his words were dark and pained. "I have nothing left to lose by doing this except for my soul, and even that is already damned. There is nothing holding me back."

Roy smirked bitterly and gave a soft, sardonic laugh. "I think that's the saddest thing I've ever heard in my life."

"It's true, though."

"I know. That's what makes it sad."

The pair fell silent and turned their gazes back to the coffin. After a long pause, Roy ventured to say, "You don't have to be here for this. It's going to get pretty ugly."

"...No. I'll stay. I want to be a part of this. Besides... aren't you right handed?"

Roy looked up at the boy in confusion. "Yeah, so?"

"Your hand is broken. How are you supposed to draw the transmutation circles?"

Oh.

Roy let his gaze wander down to his hand and the mess of splints that held it in place. The hadn't really thought about the fact that he could scarcely sign his own name at the moment, let alone draw a complex array. Al was right; the kid was going to have to draw the circles.

"Fine, then let's get started." Roy mumbled, then moved to grip the handle at the foot of the casket. "Help me get this onto the ground."

Al grabbed the other handles and aided Roy in lifting the coffin from the shelf that it had been occupying. They set it on the floor a little more roughly than they'd meant to, filling the grim chamber with a grating, echoing sound that sent a chill down the colonel's spine. He took a breath and rested his hand on the clasp that held the lid in place, shivering at the feel of the cold metal beneath his fingers as he flipped up the latch. Roy glanced up at Al, almost wanting to tell him to look away... but he kept his peace, kneeling down beside the casket and pushing open the lid mutely.

The reek of death that Roy had been very aware of since they stepped into the crypt suddenly intensified as he raised the lid. The stench of decay wafted out of the coffin so strongly that the colonel had to turn his head away and grit his teeth to keep from gagging on it. Behind him, Al gave a soft moan and then he, too, turned away. Obviously, it was not the smell of his older brother that so disturbed the metal boy—since he really _had_ no sense of smell—but the sight of Ed's days-dead body lying placidly in his casket.

Ed's body was gracefully arranged; his arms crossed elegantly over his chest and his head tilted slightly downward at a demure angle. His golden hair had been let down from its habitual braid so that the brilliant tresses framed his face and tumbled down over his shoulders. The body had been embalmed to stay the putrefying hand of time, so luckily it had not quite begun to fully decompose yet, but there was still a definite grey-green splotchiness to Ed's face.

Still, considering the fact that he'd been dead for nearly five days, Roy thought that he looked pretty damn good.

"Are you going to be okay with this?" Roy asked Alphonse gently after pausing a moment to allow the kid to collect himself. It was easy to forget that the tall, imposing figure beside him was just a child... a child that was still in deep mourning for the only real family that he had. It must be difficult for him to be faced with the slowly decaying corpse of his brother, even if he was trying to be stoic.

"Yeah... yeah, I just... it's hard." Al said after a moment, turning back to Roy and the body. "...But I still want to do this."

Roy smiled up at him wanly, wondering faintly if he would have had the same fortitude at Al's tender age... and this wasn't even the worst of what Al had seen in his young life. The colonel turned back to the body and started unbuttoning the front of Ed's suit, trying to distance himself emotionally from the corpse in front of him as he pulled back the cloth and revealed the huge Y-shaped autopsy incision that marred Ed's torso.

"Alright then, Alphonse," Roy said brusquely, producing a black felt-tipped pen from his pocket and handing it over. "I need you to draw the creation circle here," he pointed to Ed's chest, just above his heart, "and the soul circle here." he finished as he gently tapped his finger against Ed's forehead.

Al hesitated briefly, but then took a superfluous breath and stepped closer to the casket. He carefully knelt down beside the colonel and leaned over his brother's defunct form, raising his admirably steady hand to draw the ornate circle on Ed's cold, discolored chest. That done, he moved to Edward's lifeless face and began to work there as well. Edward's head lolled to the side slightly under the pressure of Al's drawing, but after a moment Al timidly took Ed's jaw in his other hand to keep his brother's head still as he drew. Roy watched him in silent sympathy, making sure that every line and shape of Al's drawing was perfect. Dealing in such dangerous alchemic taboos as they were, they could not afford even the smallest of mistakes.

"Okay." Al murmured when he'd finished, backing away from his brother and subconsciously wiping his hands on his loincloth as if to remove the taint of his brother's dead flesh from them. Roy moved forward to take his place next to Ed's head and adjusted the ring on his finger a little anxiously.

"Well, here goes nothing..." he mumbled.

Roy reached over and placed his hands on Ed's forehead, the cool clamminess of his brow making the colonel's skin crawl with a quiet, bone-deep sort of horror. He quelled the feeling quickly and bent his head to his task, concentrating hard on the lines beneath his fingers and willing the ring on his finger to do most of the work. The circle came to life, illuminated from within by a white, ethereal light. The glow traversed all parts of the circle on Ed's forehead, then even went so far as to cast its haunting glow from the narrow space beneath Ed's closed eyelids as if the dead boy were crying tears of light.

Even though this was the only visual sign of the alchemic reaction, Roy felt the soul plummet back into the body before him, filling it with the nearly intangible thrum of consciousness. Roy took his hands away and moved aside a little, giving Al room to step forward again.

"Brother?" Al called softly to the immobile form. "Ed... are you there?"

At first there was no reaction. The body did not move or breathe or do anything else that might have signified that Ed's consciousness had returned to this plane of existence. Roy sat back on his heels slightly, his heart dropping into his stomach as his thoughts strayed toward his own failure. But then, slowly, Ed's eyes opened. His eyelids clung momentarily to the sticky, blue-hazed surface of his eyeballs, but grudgingly they raised themselves and rolled sluggishly over to look at Alphonse. His dry lips parted, but when he spoke the words did not come from his mouth... they came from his entire being.

"_...Al?_"

Al made a desperate keening sound and cupped the side of his brother's face in one of his massive hands.

"_Why can't I move?_" Ed rasped unfocusedly, his half-panicked words not quite matching up with the slow movement of his lips. He tried to raise his arm, but the jerking result looked more like a spasm than conscious effort. He turned his gaze to look down at himself and froze, his cataract-fogged eyes widening as they absorbed his autopsy incision and the long burn that had sealed his fatal wound. "_Oh... god..._"

"Hang on, Fullmetal." Roy said quickly, moving to place his hands on the transmutation circle over Ed's unbeating heart. "I'm not done yet."

Ed's gaze jerked up in nervous surprise as if only just realizing that the colonel was in the room, then his eyes shot back down to the circle on his chest. It took him a moment to recognize this specific circle, but when he did his face contorted with a horror so potent that Roy nearly pulled away from him. Ed opened his mouth to speak again, but Roy activated the circle before the boy could launch into any sort of protest.

The circle on Ed's chest became a brilliant white, shining much more garishly than the previous transmutation. Roy felt the hungry pull of the reaction immediately but pressed forward into it, allowing the power of the red stone to feed it.

It is hard to describe the feeling of doing high-level alchemy. It is exhausting—even with the help of the red stone that glowed brilliantly red on The Flame's hand—but it is also euphoric. Roy could feel the power rushing through him in a surge of searing heat and bitter cold, draining him and energizing him all at once. He was like a warrior on the battlefield, tasting blood and crowing his victory to the open sky. He was like a vagabond on the streets, humbled by the supremacy of the world flowing around him. He was like a woman giving birth—no, _re_birth—to Edward in this cold, dank crypt. It was a joyous, terrifying, completely overwhelming sensation that could never be forgotten or duplicated.

But then he felt the twist inside of him... the sharp, deep pain of something going terribly wrong. He'd gone too far. The ring was backfiring. He tried to pull away as the white light around him became an entrail-colored reddish purple, but the reaction held him, demanding that he give more. He was aware that the body beneath him was calling out his name and begging him to _stop, stop, STOP goddamn it, you're going to kill yourself!_ but Roy couldn't do anything about it. He couldn't stop, couldn't pull away, couldn't keep the insane, manic grin from spreading across his face as the intoxicating power coursed through him. Part of him didn't even want to stop, even as the felt the power consuming him, draining him, tearing him apart with such violence that he tossed his head back and screamed.

He was a starving dog in an alley.

He was a child looking up at the stars.

He was a GOD.

The power surged suddenly, blasting outward from Roy's hand like the shockwave from a massive explosion, knocking the colonel back and slamming him hard against the far wall as the circle of energy expanded well past the bounds of the crypt and across the entire cemetery. He slid down to the cold floor of the chamber, the breath knocked from his tired lungs. The stone set into the ring on his finger fractured and burst, sending tiny shards of red scattering to the floor. Roy sucked air into his lungs painfully and rolled over onto his side, coughing harshly and he tried to adjust to the hot pain that was rushing through every part of his body. Panting, he raised his head and looked across the room at Edward. The boy was returning his gaze, alarm etching itself into every feature of his face.

"_Colonel, what the hell_—" he began, but then his words fell silent. The circle on his chest was still glowing faintly, but suddenly the light became almost blinding. Ed's body jerked rigidly and his mouth gaped open, raggedly drawing in the first breath he'd taken in the better part of a week. This breath, though, was quickly exhaled again in the form of the most terrifying sound that Roy had ever heard.

It was undoubtedly a scream... but it was a contorted, piercing scream that no living thing should have ever been able to make. It was raw and warped by the disintegration of Ed's vocal chords and it possessed an emotional quality that pulled a sympathetic whine from Roy's throat in spite of himself. It was the sound of a thousand demons singing or of a thousand angels wailing, but mostly it was the sound of pain so indescribably, soul-shatteringly intense that it could only be expressed in this one nameless sound.

The thick stitches that held closed the autopsy-wound on Ed's chest abruptly burst open, sending a flood of milky, red-tinged fluid cascading down onto the off-white silk that lined the inside of Ed's coffin. Ed's back arched up out of the coffin and he writhed in his agony, drawing another rattling breath as if to scream again, but the sound was choked-off as an inundation of that same foul-smelling fluid forced its way out of his open mouth. Ed raised himself up enough to lean his head over the edge of the coffin and vomited hard onto the cold stone floor as his body forcefully rejected the formaldehyde and other preserving agents that he had been embalmed with. It was pouring from his every orifice: from the gash on his chest, from his mouth and nose, from his eye sockets, and probably from his bowels, too. His body was purging itself of this unnatural invasion, but it was also cleansing itself of the rot that had begun to settle on Ed's insides, ridding itself of everything that shouldn't be there.

Roy had known that this would happen. He had seen it happen with the rats in his study. Their bodies had automatically flushed out the decay while the rats thrashed and cried out in their cages, but even that awful sight had not prepared him for what was happening before him now.

Ed stopped vomiting and screeched again helplessly, gripping the side of the casket in sick desperation as he wailed his pain. Roy turned his head with some difficulty and looked toward the open entrance of the crypt. Someone was going to hear Ed's screaming if they didn't shut him up quickly. The last thing that they needed now was unwelcome company.

"Alphonse..." the colonel called out weakly as he tried to force himself up onto his hands and knees. Al was still standing next to Ed's spasming, shrieking form with his hands half-extended but not touching his brother. Horror radiated from his trembling metal body like heat from a flame, practically filling the room with his frantic, disturbed alarm. "Alphonse!" Roy called again, this time loud enough to be heard over Ed's screaming.

Al turned to him and the force of his emotional distress slammed into Roy even more potently, nearly making the colonel gasp under the onslaught of the soul-child's psychological pain.

"Knock him out!" Roy shouted, attempting to get to his feet and failing. His entire body felt as if it had been chewed up and spit out, the profound exhaustion that pulsed within him too great to be ignored.

"W-what...?" Al asked tremulously, too fraught and afraid to register what the colonel had said.

"_Hit _him, Alphonse!"

Al looked over at his brother then turned back to Roy, wringing his hands.

"Do it before someone hears him!"

The youngest Elric made a high, pained sound and pulled back his fist, connecting it solidly with the side of Ed's head. Ed's screaming cut off abruptly and he fell limp, his head and one arm dangling lifelessly over the edge of the coffin. A shuddering moan escaped his preservative-daubed lips and his blind eyes slid closed. Though Ed had clearly been knocked unconscious, the muscles in his chest and abdomen continued to spasm violently, forcing rotten tissue and embalming fluid out of the gaping hole in his torso. The same thick, vile liquid still dribbled out of the corner of his mouth sluggishly, tinted red-brown with old blood.

Silence returned to the crypt, haunting and terrible. Tremblingly, Al sank to his knees and collected Ed in his arms, burying his cold face against his brother's neck as a dark sob echoed hollowly within him.

"...This is supposed to happen." Roy consoled with a soft groan, pushing himself upright to lean back against the wall behind him. "His body is getting rid of the rot and toxins so that he can start to heal."

"You knew it was going to be like this and you didn't tell me?" Al asked accusingly, his voice tight with grief.

Roy sighed and didn't respond as he rubbed his face with his hand, only then noticing that the shattered ring had torn a great deal of flesh from his finger. Gingerly, he pulled off the remaining parts of the bloodied ring and let them fall to the floor, the metal making a bright sound like a tiny bell as it hit the cold concrete. It was useless now, anyway. He reached clumsily into his pocket, every muscle in his body crying out with fatigue as he pulled out his keys and tossed them onto the floor next to Al. The armored boy looked up at him with a start, pulling Ed closer to his chest protectively.

"Take him to my apartment. The worst of it will probably be over by the time he wakes up, but he still has hours of discomfort ahead of him. After he flushes everything out his body is going to start producing blood on overdrive. Being dead for so long, his muscles have already started to deteriorate, so saturating them with blood again is bound to be a long and painful process."

Al looked up at him, pausing a moment before picking up the keys silently.

"Put him in your chest. Don't let anyone see him." Roy added cautiously.

The boy nodded slowly, looking a little shell-shocked as he opened his breastplate and gently placed the curled form of his brother into his own chest. He closed himself and straightened carefully.

"Are you coming?" Al asked, suddenly realizing that the colonel was making no attempt to get to his feet.

"No... I don't think that I want to risk standing at the moment." He laughed shakily, leaning his head back against the wall. His head was throbbing as if someone had taken a jackhammer to the back of his skull, the dull pain making the corners of his vision pulse black with every beat of his heart. "Go on, I'll catch up later."

"I could carry you..." the boy offered, concern making his voice sound even younger than it already sounded.

The colonel shook his head and then winced as the movement shot bright spots of pain to backs of his eyes. "That might attract unwanted attention. Just go, I'll be fine. Besides," he added, casting his glance toward the stinking puddle of vomited embalming fluid that had spread itself next to the now-empty coffin, "someone has to clean this up."

Al shifted uneasily, knowing that the colonel was right but not wanting to leave the weak and exhausted man by himself in a crypt.

"Just go, kid." Roy told him softly, "You have more important things to worry about right now."

Al nodded and crossed his arms over his chest, "Just be careful."

"Yes, sir." Roy quipped, giving Al a mock-salute as the boy turned and moved carefully out the open doorway, quickly disappearing into the dark night beyond. The colonel took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, letting his eyes fall shut.

That transmutation had taken a lot out of him, mentally as well as physically. The exhaustion that flooded him was sharp and profound, but so was his uneasiness when he thought about the horror that had crossed Ed's face as he realized that he was just a soul inhabiting his own dead body. Roy couldn't even imagine what it would be like to experience that... He pushed the thought from his mind and tried to think about other things.

Although it had not been his intent to nod off, Roy's body quickly gave in to his desperate fatigue and he was sleeping within in a matter of minutes. He did not awaken when the owl sitting in the tree outside screeched ominously, nor when a sudden gust of wind howled in through the doorway and brushed a few strands of his hair across his closed eyes. He was dead-to-the-world asleep, his mind and body forcefully trying to recuperate from the strain he'd just put them through.

There was another sound, though, that also escaped the dozing colonel's notice. It came from behind him, on the long, narrow shelf just above his head. Within the ornate mahogany casket resting there, something stirred. It dragged its cracked nails across the inside of the coffin's lid slowly, the few remaining synapses in its brain sluggishly trying to figure out how to escape from its wooden prison.

It smelled fresh blood just beyond its reach, and it was hungry.


	5. Welcome Back

Alphonse reached over and turned on the tub's faucet, then pulled up the small metal knob that opened the valve for the shower. Water cascaded down like heavy rain onto Ed's unconscious form, washing away the bloody, syrupy fluid that coated his chest, arms, and face. Al leaned forward and gently rubbed the viscous stuff from his brother's naked skin, relieved to see that the faintest bit of color was returning to Ed's grey complexion under the flow of hot water.

Al still couldn't believe that the body in front of him was alive again. It was just so insane... so absolutely mind-boggling. But it was true. This was real. All the way back to Mustang's apartment Al had delighted in listening to Ed breathing inside of him, the steady—though ragged—sound driving home the fact that Ed was _alive_. Alone on the dark streets of Central with his resurrected brother crammed into his chest cavity, Al had succumbed to his frantic joy and started giggling madly, giddy and overwhelmed by all that had happened in the last hour. He was ecstatic. He was terrified. He was full of chaotic thoughts and feelings that he couldn't even begin to name... but none of it mattered because Ed had risen from the grave and—though Brother was unconscious and in for a long night of pain according to Mustang—he was really back and that joy far outshined the trepidation that had also settled in Al's mind.

Shaking his head wonderingly, Al ran his hand across Ed's chest, tracing the long lines of the autopsy incision. The gash had almost finished closing itself but it was still oozing a little. Happily though, it was bleeding real, fresh blood that was untainted by embalming fluid or liquid decay. It looked as if Ed's body had finished cleansing itself and was now starting to heal. Ed's muscles were still twitching occasionally, the half-dead meat spasming in an attempt to draw blood into the weakened tissue, but overall he seemed to be doing much better. Not to say that he _looked_ good, because he certainly didn't... but there was still a vast improvement over the corpse he had been not too long ago.

Al reached for the bar of soap beside the tub and scrubbed it against his brother's skin. He felt a little bad about using Mustang's bathtub without asking, but he figured that the colonel would agree with him in thinking that that small presumption was more favorable than letting Ed get blood and embalming fluid all over the immaculately clean apartment. Besides, even though Al couldn't smell him he was pretty sure that Ed reeked of death and Mustang would certainly appreciate him getting rid of the caustic stench before it could contaminate his living quarters.

The younger Elric washed his brother thoroughly, clearing all traces of death from his pale skin. He even washed the closing wound as best he could, carefully sanitizing it to help avoid infection. He cupped Ed's head in his hand and worked the lather into his damp hair, finger-combing the golden strands as he rinsed the soap back out. Al tried to scrub off a dark smudge that was seated high on the side of Ed's cheekbone, but then guiltily realized that it wasn't dirt at all, but the beginning of a nasty bruise from when Al had knocked him out. Alphonse ran his thumb gently over the discolored area with a sigh, but then froze as Ed's brow furrowed and a quiet whimper issued from his slender throat.

"...Brother?" Al called.

Ed whimpered again and shifted weakly, trying to tilt his head to keep the spray of water out of his face. Al quickly turned the water off, then propped Ed up into a sitting position and shook him gently, calling his name. Edward's golden eyes opened blearily. Though his eyes had begun to clear up, there was still a thin film of blind grey-blue covering the surfaces of his eyeballs. He looked around unfocusedly, his face contorted with pain as his hazy gaze finally fell upon Al.

"Ed... are you okay...?" Al asked timidly, looking down into his brother's face.

"Huh... h-hurts..." Ed managed to rasp after a beat, closing his eyes again.

"I know, Brother... It will get better, though, I promise."

"No..." Ed moaned, shaking his head limply, "Th-this is wrong... I should be dead..."

"Mustang brought you back. So far it looks like it was a complete success." Al told him, trying to sound confident in spite of the way his voice was tremoring. "He was too tired to make it back here, but he trumped Equivalent Exchange and I think he's okay."

Ed shook his head again, pulling himself away from Al's loving hold on him. "You... you n-never should have gone this far again... Haven't we learned anything about playing god? Y-you had _no right_ to do this to me..."

Al was a little taken aback by Ed's harsh, disquieted tone. He reached his hand back out to his suffering brother, "But, Ed..."

Ed jerked away from him, fear, agony and quiet anger burning in his glazed eyes. "Don't touch me!" Brother panted, but then his expression softened a little when he registered the sick emotions within Al that the metal boy could not hide. "Just... just leave me alone for a while... please."

"...Okay, Brother." Al said softly, the joy that he'd felt only moments ago completely overwhelmed by a renewed sense of despair. Ed was not happy to have been brought back as Al had imagined that he would be. Instead, he was full of dark melancholy and barely-contained terror at finding himself alive. His bodily agony and mental strife was probably a lot to absorb at once.

Al got to his feet and moved heavily to the door, pausing at the threshold to say:

"I'll be close by, so call if you need anything... alright?"

Ed gave no reply other than to ball himself into a fetal position, tucking his head down against the curve of the porcelain tub with his back to his brother. Al's spirits sank still further at that and he quickly exited the room without another word, trying to ignore the sounds of his brother's soft weeping as it echoed against the tiled walls.

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Roy's eyes opened to near blackness. For a moment he was confused and slightly alarmed, but then he remembered where he was and a soft curse escaped his lips. He'd fallen asleep. How long had he been out? Forty-five minutes, maybe? Surely no more than an hour... Whatever the case, he needed to get up _now_. The coffin needed to be put back on the shelf at the very least to keep the cemetery groundskeeper from noticing that Ed's body was gone.

So, with a groan, Roy turned and grabbed the shelf above his head, using it to heft himself to his feet. He swayed for a moment, silently willing his wobbling legs to support his weight as he ventured to take a cautious step forward. His knees buckled almost immediately and he had to catch himself on the shelf again, his bloodied, broken hand resting on the coffin that inhabited the narrow space. He was panting heavily just from the strain of standing; how the hell was he supposed to lift Ed's damn casket and put it back? The colonel bent his head, thinking hard. Maybe he could call his apartment from a payphone and have Al come back to help... but no, he was busy taking care of Ed. Maybe he could...

But then a sudden sound made his train of thought derail. It wasn't a loud sound or a sound that recognizably ominous, like a thunderclap or police sirens... it was a soft sound, barely audible. In fact, Roy might not have heard it at all if he hadn't _felt_ it at the same time. The gentle scraping noise was accompanied by a vibration of movement that tremored up from Roy's fingertips, which were placed firmly on the closed mahogany casket set into the wall.

Something within was shifting around lazily, clawing at the lid in a slow, almost dreamy manner. Roy pulled his hand away quickly, a deep-seated fear coating his insides with sharp shards of ice. Slowly, he moved forward again, resting his splinted hand on the coffin's latch while the other ventured down to the gun that was holstered at his hip.

No... this couldn't be what he thought it was... perhaps a rat had chewed its way through the wooden casket and was now living comfortably within it. That would explain the scratching more logically than the grim thoughts that raced through Roy's head. Still... he should check. Just to be sure.

Roy took a breath and flipped up the latch. Carefully, he cracked open the lid, opening it as fully as he could in the confined space of the shelf, which allowed for perhaps a five-inch chink. Roy peered inside the coffin, but the darkness within was so profound that he couldn't even see an outline of the body. The sound had stopped as well, further convincing Roy that the noise had come from a rat that was now spooked and waiting for Roy to close the lid before it returned to its business. The colonel shook his head and gave a little laugh, silently admonishing himself for even entertaining such silly thoughts...

A gnarled, green-and-purple splotched hand shot out from the narrow opening from within the casket, grabbing Roy by the wrist and pulling his arm into the dark interior before he could even react. A sharp, burning pain seared the colonel's forearm and he cried out in surprise. Roy jerked his arm back out of the coffin and fell backward, landing on the cold floor with a painful thump. The thing inside the coffin reached its hand out again, groping the air for the colonel with cold fingers.

Roy froze where he fell, watching the thing search for him. What the _hell_...? How could this be? Had the ring's backfire revived the entire crypt instead of just Ed? He held his breath and listened hard... yes. There were tiny, scratching sounds filling the room from every side, so quiet that Roy would not have noticed them if he hadn't been listening for them specifically.

This was bad.

Roy struggled upright and then lurched to his feet, looking down blearily at the new wound on his arm. It was a vaguely circular hole with ragged teeth-marks prominent around the perimeter. A bite wound. The thing hadn't just bitten him, though... it had taken a fucking _chunk_ out of him. Blood ran down his arm and dripped from his fingertips, spotting the floor with deep red.

"You son of a bitch..." Roy mumbled to the living corpse, more irritated than afraid now that he was out of its reach. The thing before him was no different than the undead rats that he'd had back in his study, and Roy would dispatch this accidental creation just as readily. He pulled his gun out and aimed at the darkness within the casket, guessing where the head might be as he pulled the trigger. A loud BANG echoed within the chamber and the beast fell still, its frail grip on un-life detached.

The colonel sighed and looked around at the rest of the caskets lining the walls. He half considered opening each casket and blowing each corpse's head off... but then decided that was probably not a good idea. Besides, the alchemy that had animated these bodies had only been peripheral and they would most likely become dormant meat again by the time the sun rose. He didn't need to re-kill them all, for they'd probably do it on their own in a few short hours. Also, Roy didn't think he had enough bullets to take them all out anyway.

Roy snorted uneasily and turned back to the empty coffin at his feet, pretending that the scraping, shifting sounds weren't bothering him. He crouched down beside the head of the casket and closed the lid, latching it securely before testing its weight. It was heavy, but he thought that he could manage.

So, after about ten minutes of grunting, pushing, pulling, and cursing Roy finally managed to muscle the casket back into its proper place. He staggered back slightly and bent double, panting as he rested his hands on his knees and stoically fought off the urge to swoon. He looked down at the congealing puddle of goop that Ed had expelled and decided to just leave it there. He did not have the means to clean it up physically and really doubted that he'd be able to handle even that simple alchemic task in his current state.

Instead, Roy took one last look around the room and headed out the door without preamble.

Ugh. It was going to be a very long walk home.

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The smooth tiled floor was cold and wet, but Ed was too exhausted to move any further than he already had. It had taken most of his failing strength to be able to push himself over the edge of the tub and the short fall onto the tiles below was far more painful than he'd thought it would be. Hearing him cry out as he hit the floor, Al had rushed back into the bathroom to see if he could help, but Ed refused him. His whole body felt like it was being consumed by fire, but he was chilled to the core and shivering convulsively. All he wanted was a dark corner where he could curl up and die; unfortunately, he would have to settle for enduring his agony sprawled naked in the middle of Colonel Mustang's bathroom floor as his organs shifted about inside him and his muscles writhed beneath his skin.

The spasms increased and decreased without pattern, nearly stopping entirely one moment and then slamming into him again with such force that he had to bite into his own hand to keep from screaming. At the moment the spasms were fairly mild, but his lurching heart still raced in justified fear of another onslaught of pain.

It was all so wrong. There was no word that could really describe what Ed was going through other than "wrong". Ed felt like the very definition of an abomination but he honestly couldn't say why. It was as if his body remembered things that his mind had forgotten. He felt dirty and guilty and his soul seemed to be crying out for some sort of release that Ed did not understand.

Al kept telling him that it would get better, but Ed didn't really believe him. Edward didn't necessarily want to die again, but a large part of him still yearned for death like a child longs for his mother. It was a potent, instinctive sensation that made Ed feel more animal than human and that scared him as deeply as the promise of more pain.

Ed jerkily pulled his limbs up against his chest and closed his eyes, a bone-deep shiver running through his unclothed body. He just wanted it to be over. No... more than that, he wished that he'd never been resurrected in the first place. He knew that Mustang and Al had risk their lives to return his, but they had no idea what they had done...

From outside the bathroom, Ed heard the front door open and close. Distantly, Al's armor clanked as he got to his feet and greeted someone. Mustang's low, dark voice answered him and, although Ed could not at first make out what they were saying, the fatigue in the colonel's voice was almost tangible.

"Where is he?" Ed heard the colonel ask as he moved closer.

"In the bathroom. He doesn't want me anywhere near him." Al replied softly, his words clearly upset.

Footsteps approached and paused in the doorway to the bathroom. Ed could feel Mustang's presence, but he didn't raise his head to look at him or even react to the colonel's entrance.

"I washed him off in the tub... I hope that's okay." Al said timidly, coming up from behind him.

"It's fine." Mustang intoned, crouching down next to Ed. "Hey. Kid. Look at me."

Ed considered ignoring him. All he wanted right now was to be left alone. But, slowly, Ed rolled his head over and looked at his superior, knowing that Mustang wouldn't tolerate being ignored as gracefully as Al did.

Mustang looked awful. His eyes were heavy-lidded and red-rimmed with dark half circles shadowed in beneath. His black hair was even more disarrayed than it usually was and his pallid face was smeared with blood. In spite of this, though, he was smiling faintly.

"Welcome back." he smirked tiredly.

"Oh, Colonel... your arm." Al winced suddenly, sounding a little alarmed. Mustang looked down at his arm and Ed followed his gaze, taking in the half-dried streaks of red than ran down his forearm and soaked into the sturdy gauze that held his hand in splints. "That looks bad."

"It's nothing. This... psycho bum bit me on the way back here." Mustang said flippantly, turning back to Ed and looking him over carefully, running his fingers along the nearly healed autopsy wound. Ed flinched away from his soft touch instinctively and Mustang jerked his hand back, quickly realizing that he'd overstepped a boundary.

"Wait... someone _bit_ you?" Al asked, shocked.

"Yeah." he mumbled as he got back to his feet and moved out of the room. "Crazy world."

"...Are you feeling any better, Brother?" Al inquired quietly when Mustang had gone, reaching his hand forward and brushing his fingertips against Ed's shoulder.

"It comes and goes." Ed replied after a beat, his voice a low rasp.

"I'm so sorry, Ed... He didn't tell me that it was going to be like this..."

Ed didn't say anything. That wasn't the point. The point was that Ed and Al had agreed long ago that no one should mess with lives like this. After what had happened with their mother, the Eric brothers had made an unspoken pact and Al had broken it. His intentions had been pure... but that didn't make his actions any more forgivable.

Mustang returned after a moment and threw a wad of clothing at Ed. "Put these on." he ordered, "The last thing that you need to do is catch a cold on top of everything else."

With that said, Mustang looked down at Ed a little awkwardly then turned around and disappeared out of the room again. Ed and Al looked at each other blankly for a moment, then Ed picked up the tossed clothes. It was a black t-shirt and a pair of drawstring sweats, no doubt from Mustang's own bureau.

"Do you need me to help you get dressed?" Al offered anxiously.

Ed paused for a moment, but then slowly nodded. As much as he hated to admit it, he knew that he lacked the strength to even dress himself. He did need Al's help.

Carefully, Al dressed his older brother, painfully aware of the emotional turmoil that raged within his newly-beating heart.


	6. Need

Roy finished tying off the last layer of bandage on his arm and smiled grimly at his handiwork. After he'd cleaned all the blood off he realized that the bite wasn't nearly as bad as he'd thought, but it was still throbbing almost as badly as his poor head. Maybe he'd go in to the clinic tomorrow to have it looked at; to be honest, the thing probably needed stitches, but Roy was entirely too tired to stitch himself at the moment. He'd take care of it in the morning.

The colonel looked down at the blood that he'd smeared all over his bathroom counter and ardently decided to clean it up later; at the moment he was exhausted and just didn't feel well, so cleanliness could wait. He switched off the bathroom light and moved into his bedroom, glancing up briefly at the form on his bed. After Al had dressed Fullmetal he had managed to coax him out of the bathroom, promising him that he'd be more comfortable on the couch. Roy had immediately offered his bed instead and now Ed was lying on top of the dark blue bedding, looking distinctly miserable and shivering occasionally.

The shivering worried Roy a little. It was probably the very least of Ed's concerns at the moment, but Roy didn't take it as a good sign. Ed had been a cold corpse for days and, while his organs seemed to be functioning at an almost normal rate now, his body temperature still remained too low. They needed to warm him up but Ed refused to stay under the blankets.

Al was sitting on the floor next to the bed, his eyes glued to the quietly suffering form of his brother. Neither spoke, although Ed made a soft whining sound like an injured dog and rolled over onto his other side. Roy clenched his jaw and moved closer, sitting on the corner of his bed and looking down as his subordinate helplessly.

Alphonse had privately told the colonel that Ed was in a deep, angry depression over having been resurrected. The pain in his healing body fluctuated between "bad" and "unbearable" and it was clear that his mind was in an equally dire state. Edward would mumble to Al occasionally in response to a question, but the kid had not said one word to Roy. The colonel could practically taste the blame and despair that Ed was feeling, and most of it was directed toward him.

"Uh... Colonel, sir?" Al said after a moment, calling his attention away from the boy on his bed. "Can you sit with him for a while? I need to... clean out my armor."

Roy looked over at him, eyebrows raised. He'd thought the smell had been coming from Edward in spite of his bath, but it made much more sense for the reek of death to be coming from Al. The younger boy had, after all, transported Ed within him all the way here while Ed was leaking various unsavory fluids. Al's chest cavity was probably a congealing mess of old blood and liquefied rot; it was no wonder that he was eager to clean himself out.

"Of course. There are rags under the sink if you need them."

Al thanked him with a tiny bow and exited to the bathroom.

Roy looked over at Ed again awkwardly. What could he possibly say to someone that he'd just resurrected, apparently against his will? The colonel wanted to distract Ed from his pain, but the only way he knew how to do that was strike up a conversation and Ed did not seem to be in a talkative mood.

"You probably don't care," Roy began after a moment, saying the first thing that popped into his head, "but you were promoted to lieutenant colonel posthumously."

"...Don't talk to me."

Roy worked his jaw for a moment and considered obeying the soft, biting command. Instead he allowed himself to give a dark laugh and said, "That's no way to talk to the man who just raised you from the dead."

Ed lifted his head slightly and glared at his commanding officer. "You say that as if I should be grateful to you. I'm not. You've done an evil thing to me, Mustang... don't you dare ask me for any sort of thanks."

Roy sighed and reclined back on the bed next to Edward, folding his arms behind his head and not feeling that he should reply to that.

"You have no idea what this feels like..." Ed continued tightly after a moment, reaching up and rubbing his shoulder with one hand, attempting to massage the jerking muscles there into stillness. "This is worse than when I lost my arm and leg... this is worse than _dying, _Mustang."

"I realize that." Roy admitted quietly. "And I'm sorry."

"What could have possessed you to do this? After all the flak you give me for trying to do it myself when I was just a stupid kid... you of all people should know better." The anger in Ed's voice was barely restrained and his breath hitched painfully as he spoke.

"I don't know, Ed." Roy answered tersely after a long pause. He knew that Ed was right in his anger, but that didn't make his reprimand easier to bear.

Ed pushed himself upright and stared down at Roy. "You did this horrible thing... and not only that, but you dragged _my brother_ into it as well... and you don't even know why you did it?"

Roy didn't say anything for a moment. He _did_ know why, but he wasn't about to explain it to Edward. He'd done it out of guilt and despair and temporary madness over Ed's death. He'd known that it was wrong. He'd known the whole time that his actions were perverse and potentially unforgivable, but he'd done it anyway. He would not let another child die because of him. He _could_ not. Especially not Edward.

"Does it really matter what my reasons were?" Roy asked, looking away from him uncomfortably.

"No... I guess not." Ed replied after a short pause. Something in his voice betrayed a sudden confusion. Perhaps he had seen the brief, heartsick emotion that had crossed Roy's face before the colonel was able to hide it. Whatever the case, some of the anger radiating from Ed quieted and was replaced with a sad sort of bewilderment.

"I failed you, Ed." Roy added abruptly, still not looking at him. "It was my job to keep you safe and I didn't. I tried to save you... but there was nothing I could do. I just sat there uselessly and watched you die."

"Well... it wasn't for lack of trying." Ed said grimly, his voice surprisingly soft. Roy looked back over at him and saw the corner of Ed's mouth twitch in a humorless smile. Ed placed his hand over the sprawling burn scar on his abdomen and continued, "I do remember _that_ part..."

Roy returned the kid's dark smile with one of his own. "I gave you mouth-to-mouth, too... but you were already unconscious by that point."

Ed's eyes went huge and his cheeks flushed scarlet, making Roy's grin broaden. "You _what_?"

"Mouth-to-mouth, Ed. You know, 'the kiss of life'. ...And it's no wonder you can't land a girlfriend, because you are one _terrible_ kisser."

"You... perverted old..." Ed sputtered, quite scandalized, as his face became an even more impressive shade of red.

Roy laughed aloud at that, pleased with Ed's reaction. It was always such a joy to embarrass Edward, for the colonel had never met anyone with such a spectacular aptitude for blushing. Roy realized that it was probably not very nice of him to mortify the kid while he was in such a state... but at least the kid's self-consciousness had distracted him from his physical pain for the moment.

The colonel's relief was short-lived, though. The vibrant color in Ed's face drained away as quickly as it had appeared, leaving his cheeks and lips an unspeakable shade of grey-white. Ed hunched forward over the bed, using his arms to support him as he hung his head and gave a small, gut-wrenching gasp.

Roy propped himself up on one elbow and looked at him, his brow furrowed. "Spasming again?"

Ed nodded breathlessly then gave a sharp little wail of agony as the muscles in his back convulsed. On hands-and-knees, Ed gritted his teeth and clutched the bedding in a desperate death-grip, the knuckles of his biological hand turning white from the strain. Roy could actually see Ed's muscles writhing beneath the dark fabric of his t-shirt, lurching and rippling in a way that rose bile to the back of the colonel's throat. It looked as if something beneath Ed's skin was boiling, his flesh rolling and tightening brutally. It was a disturbing, horrifying thing to witness... Roy couldn't even imagine what it would be like to actually have to _feel_ that.

"...K-kill me..." Ed pleaded suddenly, his tight voice breaking. "Please, bef-fore Al comes back..."

Roy sat up, his heart in his throat. "C'mon, Ed... it'll pass. Just bear it for a little while longer..." he said with false conviction, feeling both sick and useless.

Ed shook his head despairingly, panting hard through his clenched teeth. "_I c-can't_..." he sobbed harshly, "I shouldn't even _be_ alive! This is _your_ m-mistake, so fix it! Just t-take back the life that you gave me, I don't want—"

But Ed's tearful, heaving pleas were cut short as another violent convulsion tore through him. He choked on the pain, unable to speak or even breathe under its reign. Roy hesitantly moved a little closer to him, a deep parental kind of instinct shouting at him to comfort the boy... while the colonel's logical, stoic side wanted to just leave the room entirely. Roy had no idea what to do.

Luckily, Ed made the decision for him, whether or not he really meant to. Fullmetal bowed his head forward and butted it against Roy's shoulder like a cat wanting attention. Ed probably wasn't even aware that he was doing it, but his twitching body was practically crying out for physical comfort with a disturbingly animal need. That was really all it took for Roy's instinct to overtake him and toss his caution aside.

Hesitantly, Roy shifted and raised his uninjured arm, wrapping it uncertainly around Ed's shoulders. He could feel the muscles in Ed's back twisting and contracting like a nest of pythons under his skin, making the colonel's stomach turn. Ed leaned into Roy's warmth, the entirety of his being silently begging to be held. Roy complied awkwardly, letting Ed practically climb into his lap. The kid pressed himself against Roy's chest, one hand clutching the front of the colonel's shirt as he gasped and wept. Roy curled himself around the boy protectively, drawing up his legs and wrapping his arms around Ed's cold, trembling body and trying to give the kid some small sense of security in the face of his wracking agony.

A particularly frantic spasm lurched through Ed and he screamed, sending a deep shock of cold into the pit of Roy's stomach. What if this _didn't_ stop? What if it was Ed's fate to be faced with such pain for the rest of his life...? Ed was right, this was Roy's mistake... but if it came to it, would he have the fortitude to "fix" it? Could he kill the boy again if he had to...?

Al rushed into the room in response to Ed's sharp cry, freezing in the doorway with soapy water dripping from his hands.

"...Again?" Al asked, upset.

"Yeah." Roy replied, doing his best to sound calm and a little exasperated when, in fact, his heart was shuddering with fear. "But I've got him, go ahead and finish."

Al hesitated a moment, but then backed out of the room. "I'm almost done, I'll be back in a second."

Roy nodded to him and turned his attentions back to the boy in his arms. Ed's face was pressed firmly against his superior and Roy could feel his desperate, panting breaths hot against his chest. The spasms were already beginning to lessen, but Ed was still shaking badly in the wake of such agony. While the spasms were only occasional, Ed was in constant pain from the ache that the spasms left behind. This ache couldn't be nearly as bad as the muscular convulsions themselves, but Ed was exhausted and frightened and the added physical discomfort probably felt much worse to him because of that.

The colonel glanced at his bedside table and the bottle of amber-colored liquid that was sitting on top of it. After a moment's consideration, he leaned away from Ed a little and reached for it. Ed whimpered and clutched at Roy even more tightly, digging his nails into him through his shirt and burying his face into his chest.

"I'm not going anywhere, kid." Roy consoled him quickly, giving the boy a reassuring squeeze. "Just hold on a minute."

The colonel reached over again and grabbed the bottle. It was only about half full, but that was more than enough. He unstopped the bottle and leaned down against Ed a little more firmly.

"Ed, I want you to drink this." Roy told him, holding the bottle out for him to take.

"...W-what is it...?" Ed panted, opening one eye.

"Scotch. It'll make you feel better, I promise."

After a long pause, Ed took the bottle and pressed it tremblingly to his lips. He took a hesitant sip and shuddered.

"It's an acquired taste, I know..." Roy admitted with a wry smile, "Just gulp it down. It will take away some of the pain and help you sleep."

Ed paused again, but the promise of less pain was too enticing to be refused by his tastebuds and he pressed the bottle to his lips again, tossing it back and draining it with admirable speed. He gave another shudder and gagged softly.

"That was disgusting..." he coughed, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand and letting Roy take the nearly empty bottle from him.

"Hey, I'll have you know that this is very good-quality scotch." Roy defended with a playfully indignant sniff.

"It t-tastes like embalming fluid... and I would know."

"Oh, it does not, you big whiner."

Ed gave a gentle, tired laugh and pressed himself still tighter against his superior. Roy smiled at that faintly, glad that even in such a state Ed could find the strength to laugh a little.

During the next half hour, Ed was wracked with three more particularly bad spasms, each of which left him gasping and trembling with pain and misery. Al came back and held his brother's hand through the worst of it, speaking softly to him as the resurrected prodigy screamed and cried against Roy's chest. After that, though, the muscular convulsions tapered off for the most part and the kid relaxed a little in Roy's arms. Roy didn't know if the muscle-relaxant and painkillers in the alcohol was responsible for calming Ed's frantic body or if the boy's body had stopped the tremors itself... but it didn't really matter. What mattered was that Ed's condition was improving markedly.

"I love Al." Ed declared drunkenly into the silence of the room, his words slurred a little by the scotch. "An' I like Colonel Bastard, too, I guess... but not as much."

Al shot the colonel a dirty look and Roy had to bite back a laugh. Al was not happy that Roy had given Ed alcohol, and now that Ed was seriously starting to feel the effects Al was even less impressed with the colonel.

"He'll be fine." Roy told Alphonse, smirking the in the face of the metal kid's withering glare as he absently twined his fingers through Ed's damp hair. The colonel was just glad that Ed seemed to be a happy, affectionate drunk rather than a depressive one like Roy himself tended to be. The very last thing that Ed needed right now was to have his depression intensified. Although—Roy reflected as he looked down at the boy who was still insistently curled in his lap and refusing to be moved—perhaps the colonel wished that Ed were a little _less_ affectionate.

The three of them fell into another easy silence, listening to an owl screech outside the closed window. Roy desperately wanted Ed to fall asleep so that the colonel himself could get some rest. It was probably close to three-thirty in the morning and Roy was so deeply exhausted that he felt physically ill. His body ached, his head was pounding, and his stomach churned queasily as if he were coming down with the flu. And on top of that, the bite on his arm was throbbing badly, the wound burning a hot tail of pain all the way up to his shoulder. He was sure that he'd be fine after a few solid hours of sleep—meaning, of course, that he'd be skipping work the next day—but for the time being he was absolutely miserable.

"Are_ you_ okay?" Al asked, breaking the lull. Roy looked up at him drowsily and shrugged.

"Yeah. I'm just tired. That transmutation... it took a lot out of me."

Al nodded slowly, "You did an amazing thing."

"...A _stupid_ thing." Ed added petulantly, his eyes closed.

Al smirked. "That, too. But honestly, sir, you look half-dead."

"I think I _am_ half-dead." the colonel yawned, leaning his chin down on top of Ed's head. "I was so tired that I fell asleep in the crypt for a while after you left."

"Ah, I'd wondered what took you so long getting back."

Roy nodded and didn't say anything else. He didn't think that he was going to tell the boys about the _other _things in the crypt that had been brought back to life. Most of them had probably become still again already, so there was no point in disturbing Ed and Al with the knowledge that Roy had created a small horde of soulless undead.

The colonel had read a story about such creatures when he was a kid. What had they been called...? Zombies? Yeah, that was it. The book had scared the hell out of Roy when he was little, terrifying him to the point that he was absolutely convinced that zombies were going to come for him in the dark of night and eat his brain. To think that he'd actually been _bitten_ by one of those "imaginary" things as an adult was kind of funny in an ironic way. Part of Roy felt that he should be a little traumatized by the sudden appearance of one of his greatest childhood fears, but instead he was just a little irritated that he'd accidentally created the things in the first place.

Roy gave a tiny snort of laughter. That's when you know that you're jaded: you find the existence of zombies annoying.

"I think he's asleep." Al said after a while, reaching forward and brushing a strand of hair from his brother's face.

"_Finally._" Roy sighed, shifting so that he could gently push Ed off of him and lay him out on the bed. "His automail was digging in to my ribcage." The colonel stretched his arms over his head with a yawn and allowed himself to fall backward on the bed next to the softly snoring boy. "I'm going to try and sleep while I can, too, if you don't mind." He added to Al as he closed his eyes.

"That's fine. You've earned the right to sleep. Do you want me to leave the room?"

"I don't care." He yawned again, "You can stay if you want."

"Okay."

Al didn't say anything more so Roy rolled over onto his side, facing away from the brothers as he pulled the disheveled blanket up from the foot of the bed and covered both Edward and himself with it.

He was asleep before he even realized that he still had his shoes on.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

It worked its way up through the damp, compacted earth that covered its resting place, its tireless body clawing ceaselessly upward. A hand erupted from the grave, followed by a second that scattered clods of dirt and tufts of grass onto its simple, yet elegant headstone. The thing dug its fingers into the earth and dragged the rest of its body out into the night air, seeming almost to birth itself from the dank ground.

Decomposing brain-matter oozed out of the creature's eye socket and dribbled onto the grass, fouling the air with its rancid stench. It lay there for a moment blankly before raising its head and sniffing the air like a bloodhound. It wanted to feed, but the only nearby flesh that it smelled came from the rotted bodies of its comrades, which were lurching all around in the moonlit cemetery like a swarm of insects.

There were dozens of them, each yearning to consume.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Edward's eyes shot open, his heart pounding savagely in his chest. He didn't know where he was and his mind was hazy and befuddled. He sat upright and the unfamiliar room spun around him dizzyingly.

"Ed? What is it, Brother?"

"They... they're coming!" Ed told Al urgently. It was hard to talk, almost as if his mouth didn't want to cooperate. "I can feel them..."

"What...? Who's coming?" Al asked, confused.

"The... the _things_. I don't know what they are! They're dead!"

The body next to Ed shifted and sat up, looking at him blearily. "What are you babbling about?" the colonel asked groggily, rubbing his face with one hand.

"It's _dead_!" Ed pressed, taking Mustang's arm and trying to make him understand. "It has... _head-stuff_ coming out of its eyehole!"

"What's wrong with him?" Al asked the colonel timidly, reaching out to stroke Ed's hair in a calming way.

"Nothing." Mustang yawned. "He's just drunk and freaked out. He probably had a nightmare. Go back to sleep, Ed."

"No! You don't... you don't get it! They're _dead_ things! We have to do something! I can feel them coming...!"

"Okay, Ed." The colonel said after a moment, lying back down. "I'll take care of it."

"You... you will?"

"Mmm-hmm... so lay down and go back to sleep."

Confused but trusting in Mustang's judgment, Ed lowered himself back down onto the bed and shut his eyes again. He emptied his mind of the putrid, hulking shapes of corpses leaving their graves and lurching into the streets of Central. They were frightening, but there was nothing to worry about now... The colonel said he would take care of it.

"You're not allowed to give him alcohol anymore." Al said darkly.

Mustang's only reply was a noncommittal grunt.


	7. It Isn't Safe

Riza Hawkeye turned the corner and nodded tacitly to the woman waiting for her there. The woman nodded back with a welcoming smile and returned to stretching out her leg muscles. Riza joined her silently, working out the tightness in her calves in preparation for her jog.

The lieutenant enjoyed going for morning runs almost every day and at least fifty percent of the time, this woman ran with her. They had run in to each other a few times right after Riza had moved back to Central from Eastern HQ and after several of these chance encounters at the crack of dawn, they had decided that they might as well run together if they were both running anyway.

In spite of how often these two women jogged down the same path though, Riza knew very little about her running partner. She knew that the woman dormed in the living quarters on the floor above Riza's, but other than that she was a mystery. The lieutenant didn't even know the black-haired woman's name or rank. For all Riza knew, she could be running with a general. It didn't really matter to Riza what her rank was, though... she was just appreciative of the silent company and needed no more from her than that.

They didn't speak much outside of greetings and farewells—which was fine with Riza because she'd never been very talkative—but their silence was an easy one. They were just two joggers greeting the sunrise before they had to don their stiff military uniforms and spend another day in the office.

Riza finished stretching and raised her eyebrows at her companion.

"Ready?"

"Of course." the woman replied.

They took off at a steady pace, breathing in the cold grey fog that had blanketed Central during the night. Their feet pounded the damp concrete rhythmically, bouncing echoes of their footsteps off the walls surrounding the military living quarters. The streets were always hauntingly quiet this time of morning, but within the next hour or so the complex would come to life and thrust itself into the daily grind. But for now, the women had the street to themselves and they enjoyed their brisk solitude.

The pair jogged past the borders of the complex and into the residential district a few blocks down. Riza looked up as they passed by Colonel Mustang's apartment, frowning to herself. She should probably stop by on the way back. He had come in to work the day before distracted and very hungover. That was hardly surprising, considering the state he'd been in the previous night; what bothered Riza was the fact that he had been _nervous_ about something. It was understandable for him to be sad or angry—or even completely guarded and blank as he tried to be when he was suffering—but this anxiety didn't fit. Riza was sure that he'd either done something that he shouldn't have or was about to. She'd tried calling him several times last night, but it seemed as if he'd unplugged his phone. She'd even come by a little before midnight and found his apartment dark and empty. Something wasn't right and Riza aimed to find out what it was.

The women crossed the street and turned on to the dirt path that cut through a copse of trees that ran the perimeter of the cemetery. Riza loved this particular part of her morning run. She loved the smell of the trees and the soft earth beneath her shoes. The fog was heavy this morning and hung thickly on the hillsides that usually provided a beautiful view of the sunrise, but Riza still breathed it all in contentedly. She didn't mind that the fog made the trail ahead dark and grey, nor the way that the cold air turned her breath into tiny white clouds with every exhalation... she was just happy to be outside and exercising.

Ahead of them, Riza saw the dim outline of someone standing in the middle of the trail, a vague shape in the frigid haze.

"On your left!" her companion warned the figure as they moved aside to pass him. As they approached though, the silent man made no efforts to get out of their way. He turned slowly and looked at them, his face obscured by fog. He was wearing his formal military attire, but the garments looked filthy and torn. The women glanced at each other curiously, but made no comment as Riza's companion fell back to run behind her so that they could jog past the man single-file on the narrow trail.

Riza ran past the disheveled soldier, but as her companion did the same the woman shouted indignantly. Riza whipped around and stopped dead. The man had grabbed the other runner deftly and had pulled her in to a pinioning hold. As Riza watched, the man lowered his head and bit into the side of the woman's face, wrenching back and tearing a chunk of meat from her cheek. The woman cried out and struggled, shifting her stance and throwing him forward over her shoulder.

"What's wrong with you?!" she barked at the man on the ground, pressing one hand to the gushing wound on her cheek as Riza took a defensive stance beside her. Barely fazed, the man lurched to his feet again and now the two women were close enough to see that something really _was _wrong with him. Very, very wrong.

The thing before them swallowed his mouthful of flesh and stepped forward, a low, hungry growl resonating from his throat. His eyes had probably been dark brown at some point, but now they were coated with a thin, opaque glaze of pale blue. His blond hair was a tangle of roots and clods of dirt and the same adornments clung to the damp, tattered cloth of his uniform. The skin on his face was a putrid blue-green-grey color with thin spider-webs of veins crawling across his cheeks. He had no nose to speak of, for it and a good portion of the flesh on the left side of his face had completely rotted away, leaving his eye socket and the bones of his jaw exposed between flaps of worm-eaten tissue.

"What the hell...?" Riza breathed, exchanging another astonished look with her partner. The woman opened her mouth to say something, but the man-creature pounced on her again before she had the chance. Riza threw herself on the thing and succeeded in pulling it off, but not before it could sink its teeth into her comrade's unprotected throat.

Riza took the half-rotted thing's head in her hands and twisted it, snapping its neck adeptly. It crumpled to the ground and lay motionless, a stream of blackish, coagulated fluid leaking from its bloodied mouth and trailing down his chin. Riza stepped back from it queasily, wiping her slick, rot-covered hands off on her shirt before turning to her comrade.

The other woman was leaning back against a tree, holding the gaping hole in her neck closed with one trembling hand. Blood dribbled worryingly from between her fingers, coating the front of her white t-shirt with a vivid stain of scarlet. Riza rushed over to her and clamped her hand onto the wound as well, hoping that more pressure would stem the flow.

"B-bastard must have torn the artery." the woman gasped, trying to smirk at Riza in a reassuring way.

"Looks like it." she agreed flatly, not about to sugarcoat it. They needed to get the woman immediate medical aid... she was losing far too much blood for comfort. "Come on, let's get you some help."

Riza put an arm around the woman's shoulder and supported her, leading her back toward the colonel's apartment. It would certainly be a violent wake-up call for Mustang, but she figured that the woman had better chances there than waiting for help to come by out here on the street.

"H-hey..." the woman rasped. "We should go faster..."

Riza looked up at her quizzically, thinking that maybe the woman was about to pass out and wanted to get somewhere sheltered, but then she followed the injured woman's gaze and stiffened.

There must have been a dozen of them, all stumbling forward with a disturbing kind of ungrace that reminded her of demented animals heaving through the last phase of rabies. They were all military personnel, all in various stages of decay and all drunkenly staggering toward the two women with arms extended and mouths gaping wide.

"Yes, faster. _Faster_ would be very nice." the woman continued, holding her neck with one hand and grabbing Riza's arm with the other as she sprinted forward, a sudden burst of adrenaline lending her the strength to run. Riza stumbled after her, glancing over her shoulder at the rotting monstrosities behind them. The things were not moving very quickly and the women had a good head start, but that didn't quell the sudden terror that tore itself a seat in Riza's chest. What the hell was going on? This couldn't be happening...

Riza didn't have time to explore her panicked thoughts though, for the woman running in front of her suddenly stopped dead in her tracks. The lieutenant plowed into the back of her and they both fell hard against the asphalt. Riza was up again in an instant, trying to pull her bleeding companion back onto her feet.

"Come on, come on!" Riza shouted at her, looking back at the creatures moving ever closer. The woman made a wet choking sound that might have been an attempt at a scream and tugged urgently on Riza's sleeve. The lieutenant looked around and saw what had made the other woman stop running. There were three more of the things directly in their path and well within reach.

A green-splotched had shot forward and grabbed Riza by the hair, pulling her toward its swollen, mold-covered mouth before she even registered that it was there. She spun away from it and kicked hard, feeling its enfeebled bones crunch beneath the force of her foot as it connected with its chest. Another grabbed her from behind and she elbowed it in the face, her stomach turning as the skin on its cheek ruptured and splattered her arm with cold viscous rot.

The woman on the ground cried out again weakly as two more of the undead creatures pinioned her, burying their faces in her neck and breasts and tearing out bloody hunks of meat. The woman's cries fell silent and her body stopped struggling as the other, larger group of the things approached and joined the feast. Riza looked at the dead woman, then back to the gang of monsters with her heart in her throat. She knew that she was going to have to leave this woman and flee, but doing so felt too much like cowardice.

She stood there and watched the things consume her companion, most of them ignoring her entirely in favor of this easier meal. Blood and strings of flesh flecked the asphalt of the deserted street and the faces of the things as they feasted on the still-warm flesh.

Riza took a breath, turned, and bolted.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Al raised his head as Mustang moaned in his sleep and rolled over, draping his bandaged arm across Ed's back. Ed was deeply asleep, lying on his stomach with his face turned toward the colonel and gave no response to Mustang's somnolent touch. In fact, Ed hadn't really moved much at all since he'd woken up ranting drunkenly about dead things coming to get him. He was sleeping peacefully now, his gentle breathing deep and even. It lifted Al's spirits to see his brother resting well, the color slowly returning to his sallow cheeks. The muscles in Ed's back and shoulders still twitched a little occasionally, but not badly enough to hurt or even to wake him. He was almost completely normal again.

In sharp contrast to Ed though, Mustang didn't seem to be doing too well. He slept fitfully and mumbled as if dreaming, tossing and turning next to Edward. Al could tell that he didn't feel well, and the colonel had even gotten out of bed around five in the morning and stumbled into the bathroom to vomit. When he came back, he wouldn't answer Al's concerned questions and instead curled up on the bed again and tried to get back to sleep.

Al had thought that perhaps the man was just over-exhausted to the point of sickness, but as the youngest Elric watched Mustang sleep he started to think that the colonel really _was_ ill. Perspiration beaded Mustang's forehead in spite of the coolness of the room, plastering his hair to his clammy face as if he were gripped by a fever. The colonel's breath came heavily as if he'd been running for miles, a strong juxtaposition to Ed's quiet respiration. Al also noticed that the bite wound on Mustang's arm was starting to bleed through the bandage, creating a blossom of color in the middle of the white gauze. The growing spot of blood wasn't really red though... more of an unhealthy-looking orangey pink. The thing probably hurt pretty badly—although Mustang tried to play it off as a scratch—and that certainly didn't help the ailing colonel feel any better.

Al felt bad for the man, but he wasn't really that worried. He figured that the strain of the transmutations the night before had just drained him so much that his immune system was too overwhelmed to fight off sickness. Al knew that the colonel hadn't really been taking care of himself since Ed's death—what with the binge drinking and all...—so perhaps falling asleep in the frigid dankness of the crypt had gifted the poor, tired man with a bad cold. Mustang certainly must be miserable now, but he'd probably be fine in a few days.

A sudden banging on the front door jolted Al out of his quiet study of the colonel. Al stood up but then hesitated, unsure of whether or not he should answer the door. He looked back down at Mustang as the frantic banging started again, but the colonel gave no sign that he heard it other than a slight furrowing of his brow. Al paused a moment longer, but then shrugged. He should see who it was at the very least.

"Colonel!" Al heard someone call from beyond the door. He recognized the voice immediately and rushed to open it.

Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye pushed her way through the doorway before Al had even opened it fully. Once inside, she slammed the door behind her and bolted it shut. She leaned back against the wooden surface and closed her eyes, her chest heaving with exertion. Hawkeye's white t-shirt was stained with fresh blood and Al could practically feel the nervous adrenaline flowing off of her in a wave of confused fear, but her face was entirely blank and revealed nothing.

"...What's going on...?"

Al looked up and saw Mustang stagger out of his bedroom, glancing around in tired bemusement and he pushed his ragged hair out of his face. His eyes landed on Hawkeye's bloodied form and his grogginess evaporated instantly. He grabbed the doorknob to the room behind him and quickly shut the door, blocking her view of Ed before she noticed him.

"We were attacked." Hawkeye said simply, opening her eyes and looking at him with an unnerving sort of calm.

Mustang was frozen for a beat, his dark eyes still dazedly absorbing the alarming amounts of blood on her shirt, but then he asked, "By what, a fucking _bear?_"

She didn't deign to reply to that, instead choosing to cross the room to the small closet on the other side. "Do you still keep your guns in here?"

"Yes, but..." he began, but she ignored him, throwing open his closet and crouching down in front of his impressive-looking gun safe. She turned the dial with an expert hand and the heavy little door popped open without contest. Al glanced back over at the colonel, noticing that he looked a little annoyed—but not surprised—that she knew the combination to his safe. Hawkeye pulled out three guns and tossed one to Mustang, checking to make sure that each was loaded before holstering them in a belt.

"Riza, what the hell is going on? What attacked you?" Mustang asked finally, his bemusement giving in to his instincts as a soldier as he watched her strap the belt around her hips.

"I don't know." She said after a beat, pausing in her task to look up at the colonel. A brief, haunted look crossed her face but she quelled it quickly before continuing, "I was jogging with a friend of mine and these... _things_ came out of nowhere. They were dressed as soldiers, but there was something wrong with them. They were..." she trailed off for a moment, then a harsh bark of laughter erupted from her. "You're going to think I'm insane... but I swear to you that they were dead. All of them, just walking corpses..."

Mustang stiffened as he listened to her speak, but said nothing.

"There were too many of them for us to fight off. My friend went down fast and... and they _ate_ her, Roy..." Hawkeye stopped for a moment, fear and sorrow entering her voice for the first time since she'd barged in. "There was nothing I could do."

"...Are _you_ okay?" Al ventured to ask softly, drawing Hawkeye's gaze away from the silent colonel.

Hawkeye's face hardened again, becoming the expressionless stone that Al was accustomed to. "Yes, Alphonse. I'm fine." She stood and turned back to the colonel. "We need to get a handle on them before they can kill anyone else, sir." she said, brushing a spot of blood from her cheek. "We should alert headquarters, maybe—"

"How could they have gotten out?" the colonel interrupted, speaking more to himself than to her.

"...Sir?"

"They... they were all latched into their coffins. They shouldn't have been able to get out."

Al's suspicions that Mustang had a fever returned as the colonel spoke those words. It wasn't necessarily the oddness of the words themselves that reminded Al of the man's sickness, but more the way that he was speaking; his words were slow and distracted, vague as if he wasn't entirely aware that he was speaking aloud.

"How many of them were there?" he asked, his eyes snapping over to Hawkeye urgently.

Hawkeye balked for a moment, regarding him with a slight frown before replying, "Well over a dozen, but there could have been more."

"That's impossible. The crypt wont hold that many bodies at once..."

A dark chill flowed through Al then. The colonel knew something. He was clearly alarmed by what Hawkeye had told him, but not as shocked as he should have been. He knew about these creatures, and if they had come from the crypt, then...

"Sir, what are you talking about?" Hawkeye asked warily.

"I've... done something." Mustang admitted nervously, taking a tentative step backward from her.

"...Something stupid?"

"Something that I probably shouldn't have."

Mustang stood still for a moment, chewing his lip and watching his lieutenant as if deciding whether or not to tell her what he'd done. He looked over at Al for a beat, then turned from him abruptly and moved to his bedroom door. He motioned for Hawkeye to follow him and she obeyed hesitantly, shooting a questioning glance at Al. Al didn't say anything. This explanation needed to words. The colonel opened the door and allowed his lieutenant to see what was slumbering beyond.

For a moment, there was no reaction from the bloodstained soldier, but then Hawkeye's muscles tensed under her red daubed t-shirt and she drew in a horrified breath.

"Roy..." she whispered, her reddish-brown eyes roaming disbelievingly over Ed's peaceful form. The sleeping boy had rolled over onto his side, tangling himself in the dark blue blanket as he slept. Ed's deep, steady breathing stirred his untidy bangs dreamily, making them brush against his pillow with every soft exhalation.

"...Roy, what have you done?" Her voice shuddered with sick alarm as she turned back to the colonel, the anxiety in her words a violent contrast to the placidity of Ed's sleeping form.

Mustang glanced at her furtively but then averted his eyes from her terrified, accusing gaze.

"I... raised the dead." He said needlessly.

Hawkeye stared at him openly, at a loss for words.

"But what about the other things?" Al asked him, "The things that attacked the lieutenant... Did you know about them?"

Mustang didn't look up, but nodded slowly. "The power of the red stone had surged past my control by the end of the transmutation that brought Ed back. I thought it had only affected the bodies within the crypt... but I guess I was wrong."

He raised his gaze to Hawkeye, his eyes pleading for forgiveness, "I thought they were contained, I swear. I had no idea that they could get free. I thought the transmutation would have worn off of them by now... If I had known..." He trailed off, unable to put his regret into words.

"Well... what are we going to do about it?" Al asked, feeling a little overwhelmed that he'd played a part in this atrocity.

"Kill them again, I guess." Mustang mumbled, "We have to sever their spinal chords or completely decimate what brain-matter they have left. That's the only way that I know how to destroy them."

"I don't know if the three of us can handle all of them." Hawkeye said, her voice cold.

Mustang flinched at the concealed anger in her words and sighed. Al could tell that he knew she was right.

A sudden scream outside made Al jump. The three of them ran to the window and looked out. Hawkeye gave a soft, horrified curse and covered her mouth.

There was an old woman standing on the other side of the street, rushing toward another woman who was pulling herself across the sidewalk. The woman on the ground was soaked in blood; one of her legs was missing at the knee and her face looked as if several chunks of it had been torn away. She was dragging herself calmly with her hands, scraping her belly and exposed intestines across the rough pavement as she made her way toward the old lady.

"My god, she's still alive..." Hawkeye breathed as the old woman shrieked again and called for help. The lieutenant turned and dashed for the front door, wrenching it open in her haste to save her friend. Mustang was hot on her heels, grabbing his alchemy glove from a shelf and sliding it on.

"Wait, stop!" a tortured voice said from behind them.

She stopped and looked up, her eyes landing on the trembling figure that was supporting himself on the doorway to Mustang's bedroom.

"Don't go out there..." Ed continued, his eyes wide. "It isn't safe."

"Ed, if that woman is still alive, then we have to—" Mustang began, but Ed cut him off.

"She isn't alive." He rasped, "She's one of those things..."

"Come back to bed, Brother..." Al said soothingly, stepping forward to push him gently back into the room. "You're still not well."

"No, look!" Ed pointed out the open front door, calling everyone's attention back to the two figures on the fog-blurred street. The older woman was crouching down beside the injured one, her eyes wide as she scanned around for aid. The injured woman lay still for a moment, looking up at her savior dazedly. Suddenly, she lurched up and knocked the old lady to the ground, growling through her blood-wet teeth. She crawled on top of the screaming woman and opened her jaws wide, a thick trail of bloody saliva trailing from what remained of her mouth and dribbling onto her victim's face as she bent forward to sink in her teeth.

"SHOOT IT!" Ed screeched to the stock-still audience of this most gruesome of plays. Hawkeye snapped out of her shock first and squeezed off a shot, sending a bullet into the creature's chest before it could take its first bite. The thing looked up as if vaguely startled, but then turned back to its prey, unconcerned. The lieutenant fired twice more in quick succession and the thing dropped, rolling off of the old woman and into the gutter. It didn't move again.

"Run home and lock your doors!" Mustang ordered the woman, his voice booming across the nearly deserted street. The woman stumbled to her feet with a confused, terrified sob and ran back in the direction that she had come, looking back only once at the twisted, ruined body sprawled on the road behind her.

Mustang shut the door and turned to Ed, pinning him with his onyx stare.

"How did you know what she was?"

Ed shook his head, a strained expression settling itself on his face as he reached up and rubbed his eyes with his hands. "I don't know. I can just _feel_ them, like they're a part of me... or I'm a part of them. I tried to tell you earlier."

"We didn't believe you." Al said apologetically, "We thought you were just drunk and scared..."

"I _was_ drunk and scared." he admitted, lowering his hands and looking up at the colonel. "That woman was... new. She wasn't like the others. They _made_ her. She couldn't have been dead for long..."

"How did they make her one of them?" Hawkeye asked darkly.

"That I don't know."

There was a short silence in the room, but then Mustang spoke up quietly. "I read a book as a child about such creatures. They rose from their graves and fed on the living. Their victims would become like them after they died, rising up again and continuing the cycle... I thought zombies were just fairytales, but apparently they're real."

"So... so if you get bitten by these things, they infect you and you become one?" Al asked, trying to organize his thoughts.

Mustang went still for a moment, his eyes widening as he turned to look at Al. From the look on his face, Al could tell that he'd just realized something... something bad. The colonel nodded slowly, then abruptly turned to Hawkeye.

"You weren't bitten, were you?" he demanded urgently, grabbing her arm and looking her over closely.

"No, I said I'm fine..." she replied, looking vaguely startled by his intensity. Mustang let her go and took a step backward. He concealed his sudden uneasiness and shook himself, furtively glancing down at the bloodied bandage on his arm. He cleared his throat and addressed his lieutenant again:

"If you don't think that we can kill them all ourselves, how are we supposed to get rid of them?" he asked her, "I don't know if we have time to wait for back-up."

"We could reverse the alchemy." Ed said lowly.

"...I used the red stone to bring you back, but it backfired and shattered. I don't have it anymore." Mustang muttered.

"So?" Ed asked, a slightly apprehensive anger darkening his voice. "Sacrifice me. I should be enough to make up for Equivalent Exchange, right?"

"Don't be stupid, Edward." Mustang snapped, looking both alarmed and annoyed. "I'm not going to sacrifice you."

"Why not? I shouldn't even be alive in the first place!"

"You shouldn't have been _dead_ in the first place!" the colonel shot back.

"Ed, this is crazy!" Al gasped, terrified at the thought of losing his brother for a second time. "I can't let you just—"

"Do you have a better idea?" Ed spat, glaring up at Al. Ed was still holding himself up against the wall and looked liable to fall over at any minute, but there was still a fire burning in his eyes. There was fear there, too... but it was masked by the flames of his conviction. He was really willing to do this.

The colonel sighed and massaged his temple with his hand. He had been trying to hide his discomfort since Hawkeye had arrived, but his composure was failing him. His face was pale and his hands were shaking very slightly as he wiped perspiration from his brow. His eyes were fever-glazed as he finally looked down at Ed again.

"...Then we should get moving. We don't have much time." Mustang said to him.

Ed nodded grimly in tacit reply.


	8. Run

Just before they left Roy's apartment, the colonel pulled Hawkeye into the bathroom and closed the door.

"I need your help." he admitted, starting to untie the bandage on his forearm. He pulled back the gauze, stifling the urge to cry out as the clinging fabric tore part of the wound. Hawkeye cursed when she saw it, covering her mouth with one hand as if she would be sick.

In just the few hours it had been since he was bitten, the wound had begun to fester badly. The ragged hole had turned shades of yellowy green and deep purple and it was still oozing anemic blood sluggishly. The edges of the injury spidered outward in a starburst pattern of grey-black veins, showing the path that the poison was working through his body. The muscles in his forearm were already starting to die, the flesh devastated by this huge, ulcer-like wound that was eating its way across Roy's arm.

Roy's heart nearly stopped in his chest when the wound was revealed. He knew it was bad, but this... His arm was _decaying_. He was alive and his body was starting to rot around him, forcefully reminding him of what he was going to become.

"Oh... Roy. Please tell me that this isn't what it looks like." Hawkeye said quietly, her voice strained as she took his arm and examined the wound with an air of sick dread.

Roy clenched his jaw and fished in the cabinet for clean gauze, handing it to her silently. After a beat she closed her eyes for a moment in guarded grief, then took the offered bandages and began to dress the wound without needing to be asked. They both understood that it would be a waste of time to actually clean the wound before rebandaging it at this point. This was not a wound that was ever going to heal, no matter what they did.

It was hurting much worse than it had been a few hours ago, but that was hardly surprising, given how it looked now. He could almost feel the undead infection crawling slowly up his arm in a jagged line of fire, hurting him, weakening him to the point that he just wanted to go back to bed in spite of the terror in his breast... in spite of the far-off thought that he may never wake up again if he _did_ go back to bed.

Hawkeye's hand accidentally brushed the wound as she wrapped the gauze around it and Roy gasped harshly, the sudden pain that shot through him so intense that he staggered and hit his knees. He fought back the urge to vomit and closed his eyes tightly, hanging his head and breathing hard as Hawkeye quickly knelt down beside him.

"Sorry..." she rasped, shaken. She reached forward for Roy's arm, but he jerked away from her, a dark, animal instinct telling him not to let her touch the wound again. The lieutenant hesitated for a moment, allowing Roy time to collect himself before she attempted to take his arm again. "I'm almost done."

Roy nodded to her weakly and allowed her to continue. She tied off the bandage and reached up cautiously to press the back of her hand to Roy's clammy forehead.

"You're feverish." She said quietly.

"I know."

"We should get you to a hospital, sir. That wound looks bad and you're well on your way to septic shock if you don't get it treated."

Roy laughed quietly, bitterly amused by her optimism. "Do you really think that they'd be able to do anything? This isn't just a dog bite, Riza. You can't fix this with some antiseptic and a few stitches... you saw what happened to your friend."

Hawkeye chewed her lip and didn't say anything to that. She looked down at the remaining length of bandage in her hands, then glanced back over Roy's arm thoughtfully. She reached up and wrapped it around Roy's bicep silently, tying it so tightly that the colonel gave a little yelp of pain.

"The least we can do is try to slow down the spread of the infection." she said flatly by way of explanation as she tightened the makeshift tourniquet further and knotted it securely.

"Clever girl." Roy smirked up at her fondly, but then sobered himself. "I need to ask another favor of you..."

"Anything."

"Shoot me... if I start to act... strange, or anything. Blow my brains out, or kick my head in, or decapitated me... whatever. I don't care what you do, just do it. Just don't..." he faltered for a moment, but then pressed on, "Just don't let me become one of them."

Slowly, Hawkeye nodded. "I won't, sir. I swear it."

He nodded back, relieved. It was not an easy thing to ask someone to kill you, but Roy fully trusted her to do it if she felt that she had to. Their eyes locked for a moment, each silently realizing that this might be their last moment alone together.

"Riza..." he began, but then stopped.

"Sir?"

"...Don't tell the boys."

The lieutenant closed her eyes and inclined her head. "I wont say anything, sir."

Roy smiled at her tiredly. God, she was so strong... much stronger than he was. As much as she must be screaming on the inside, she always managed to keep her face so expressionless. His perfect soldier.

"We should go." he said softly, then allowed her to help him to his feet. He swayed for a moment, but quickly steadied himself, trying to ignore the way that the world spun around him as he led the way back out to the front room where Ed and Al were waiting.

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They ran through the fog, the colonel and the lieutenant with their eyes peeled for any sign of danger as Al carried Ed tightly in his arms.

Ed had protested angrily that he could walk the mile over to the crypt without aid, but then promptly exhausted himself before he'd even made it across the street. He was so tired and his entire body ached as if someone had beaten the tar out of him, then taken a coffee break and done it again. It was frustrating that he could scarcely even walk under his own power, let alone keep up with two trained soldiers and a tireless suit of armor. But no, he could do this. He _wanted_ to do this...

Didn't he?

Yes, of course he did... he wasn't supposed to be alive. It was wrong and it was sinful and the world shouldn't have to suffer his unnatural existence. It didn't matter that he didn't really want to die again. It didn't matter that he'd nearly cried with joy and love when he'd woken up and heard Al's voice coming in from the front room. It didn't matter that Al himself was tearfully begging him over and over again to try and think of another way to get rid of the zombie-things.

"Please, Ed... There _has_ to be another way...!"

Ed sighed and shook his head, pressing his cheek against his brother's cold metal shoulder with a gentle groan.

"Don't talk so loud... I think I have a hangover."

From somewhere out of Ed's line of sight, Mustang chuckled softly. Ed raised his head and glared at him over Al's shoulder, but the colonel wasn't paying attention. His eyes swept the streets and darted among the trees as they approached the forested area around the cemetery. Ed didn't exactly remember all that had happened the night before, but her certainly remembered Mustang. Ed remembered his inviting warmth and the tight, paternally gruff way that he held Ed to his chest, squeezing him brutally harder each time a spasm wracked his frail body. At the time, Ed hadn't really cared who was holding him, just as long as someone _was_... in retrospect, though, Ed was mortified to have been so weak in front of Colonel Bastard.

Ed felt a humiliated blush heat his cheeks and he buried his face against Al again, jerking his mind away from Mustang's closeness the night before. It didn't matter now; that embarassment wasn't important in the face of what was happening around them. Ed could redeem himself. By sacrificing himself, Ed could remind the colonel that he was not weak, that he didn't need to be held and comforted with soft words as he trembled and wept in the man's arms...

Goddamn, he was so scared.

...Mustang had said that they needed to go back to the crypt for them to have the best chances of this working, since that was where he had done the original transmutation. Ed only vaguely remembered being in the crypt. He remembered opening his eyes to Al's shining face, then realizing with unspeakable terror that he was just a soul inhabiting his own dead body. He remembered seeing the autopsy incision on his chest alongside the transmutation circle for creation. He remembered Mustang and his frightening, manic fervor and then... then he remembered the pain. After that, all was darkness until he woke up in the colonel's bathtub, his entire body _screaming_.

Ed's skin crawled to think of going back into the crypt, that horrible place where he had been so violently reborn. But he could do it. He had to. He didn't belong in this world anymore anyway and he was willing to give his unlife to save it from these rotting beasts that had been birthed alongside him.

...Then suddenly he felt them, writhing at the edge of his consciousness like maggots on a piece of meat.

"Colonel... they're close."

Mustang looked up at him, then scanned around again, "Do you know how many?"

"No, not exactly... but there's more a few."

The colonel cursed and moved forward to flank Al protectively. Up close, the colonel looked awful. He was breathing heavily as he ran next to Hawkeye, who hadn't even broken a sweat, but Ed didn't think that it was because the lieutenant was in better shape. Mustang just looked sickly; he was pale and his eyes were darkly shadowed. And on top of that, his right arm was a mess: he had a splint taped round his hand and a bandage on his arm. Ed knew that he had a psycho hobo-bite on his forearm, but he hadn't really noticed the splint before now.

"What happened to your hand?" he asked, then yelped a little as Al shifted him for a better hold.

"Car." the colonel replied simply, not looking at him.

"You were hit by a _car_?" Ed asked, both amused and a little alarmed.

"No, a car was hit by me."

"...Why would you hit a car?"

When Mustang didn't answer, Ed looked over at Al with raised eyebrows.

"After you died..." Al whispered to him so that the colonel couldn't hear, "the first thing he did was slam his fist into the car because he was so upset. He hit it so hard that he broke his hand. You should have seen him, Brother. He just... hasn't been himself since then."

Ed stared at his brother, surprised.

"He really cares about you. About us." Al added softly.

"I thought he hated me." Ed said dazedly, his mind wandering back to the warmth of Mustang's chest, the sound of his dark voice smooth and lulling, "Well... maybe not 'hate'... but I've certainly pissed him off a lot."

"We made mom mad sometimes, too, but that doesn't mean she didn't love us. Besides, he risked his life to bring you back. He wouldn't have done that if he—"

BANG!

Al stopped talking abruptly as the sound of gunfire echoed around them. He clutched Ed even more securely and turned around in time for them to see Hawkeye fire another shot into a small crowd of walking corpses that was emerging from the trees. There was no wind that morning, but even from this distance of about thirty feet Ed could swear that their stench still reached him, overwhelming his senses with the savage, instinctive fear of death.

Mustang had his hand raised and shot jets of fire alongside his lieutenant. Between the both of them they turned the small horde into a stinking, smoldering pile of tangled limbs and gore within seconds.

Ed felt each one become lifeless meat again; each re-death seemed to tug at his soul, reminding him sickeningly that he was kindred to these awful things. He shuddered at that cold, warped feeling and pressed his face against Al's armor, unable to look at them anymore.

"Come on." Mustang said, his voice wavering a little as he led the way into the cemetery itself, brushing past the huge black iron gates that ominously marked the entrance. The colonel doggedly strode ahead of them, his fatigue becoming more and more apparent with every step. There was something wrong with him, but Ed couldn't quite place it. He felt almost like that zombie woman on the street... but different. For starters, he was obviously alive and resolutely _not_ a zombie... but still, something was disturbingly not right with him and that thought tugged at the corners of Ed's mind like an insistent child.

Nevermind. Ed had more important matters to focus on at the moment.

The crypt loomed into view in the distance as they topped the brow of a small hill, weaving between the numerous headstones and trying to ignore the fact that more than half of the graves had been recently disturbed. The dark earth had been churned upward violently and Ed could vividly imagine how the creatures had clawed their way out of their own final resting places, twisting, climbing and digging until they freed themselves.

Much worse than that mental picture though, was the eerie fact that Ed could still feel those that were still working their way up. They writhed and contorted themselves, unable to break through their sturdy wooden caskets, their maddening urge to feed driving them to batter themselves against their barriers uselessly. Ed was suddenly glad that he was being carried; he didn't know if he'd be able to keep his cool if he actually had to walk across the cemetery himself, knowing what was struggling beneath his feet.

Abruptly, Ed felt something, but it happened too quickly for him to even shout a warning. A hand burst forth from one of the undisturbed graves and grabbed Alphonse's ankle, yanking him off his feet. Al fell hard, only barely managing to roll over so that he didn't crush Edward as he hit the ground. Ed was jostled from Al's grip in the fall and tumbled to the ground, sprawling onto the dew-damp grass as the back of his head cracked sharply against a tombstone. Ed groaned and rubbed his head, looking up in time to see the zombie that had attacked them pulling itself up out of the cold earth, using Al's leg for leverage.

Ed scrambled backward away from it, but was quickly grabbed from behind before he could stumble to his feet. Ed cried out and spun around, pulling himself out of the thing's grasp. This one was still chest-deep in its grave and Ed was able to wriggle out of its reach without too much difficulty, but the dirt and roots holding it back would not last it for long.

Ed froze, exhausted and too frightened to move. The thing reached for him hungrily, its face little more than a skull caked with mud and a thin layer of flesh that held the consistency of soggy bread. Its eye-sockets were dark, empty holes and Edward stared into them helplessly, his sick terror immobilizing him as the reeking corpse drew nearer, jerking itself out of the ground bit by bit.

Another hand grabbed Ed by his arm and wrenched him violently to his feet. Ed cried out, but then silenced himself as he recognized the colonel. Mustang put an arm around him, shielding him as he snapped a bolt into the zombie's head. The jet of fire went in through the thing's eyehole and exited as a rancid burst that collapsed the back of its skull. It pitched forward, its ruined head hitting the soft ground with a dull thud as tendrils of smoke wound lazily upward from its burned flesh.

"Go! Run!" Mustang shouted at him, pushing him in the direction of the still far-off crypt. Ed stumbled and looked back at the colonel, only then seeing the troop of undead soldiers that was coming their way. Ed had been too distracted by his own attacker to see them, but there had to be at least thirty of the heaving, lurching things all staggering toward them. Al clambered to his feet again and ran at Ed, snatching him up in his arms as Mustang and Hawkeye fired upon the crowd.

"I say we turn and run like hell." the colonel called to Hawkeye as he snapped a ball over fire over the group of zombies. "We can barricade ourselves in the crypt if we can just get there."

"Agreed!"

The two officers turned and fled. Mustang fell back as a rear-guard with his tensed hand still trained on the creatures as Hawkeye moved forward ahead of Al, prepared for anything that might attack them from the front. Al sprinted after her through the graveyard making soft, panicked sounds like a wounded animal and clutching Ed to him desperately. Ed watched Mustang over his brother's shoulder as they ran, but then lost sight of both him and the herd of approaching undead as Al and Hawkeye entered another copse of trees just outside the crypt.

"This way!" Al called, pointing Hawkeye toward the crypt's entrance. She turned and slowed to a more cautious pace, her gun held at the ready as she stepped down into the darkened building. The lieutenant swept the dim interior of the crypt with a practiced eye, looking for danger before allowing the boys to enter. Most of the coffins that lined the walls were shifting and jerking as the things inside tried to escape. Some of the coffins had already been broken out of and the lids hung loosely off of busted hinges, splinters of wood littering the floor. There were, however, no zombies in the chamber that were not still locked within their cramped prisons.

"Clear!" Hawkeye called to them, ushering them in quickly before moving over to the rusty metal gate that was used to block the entrance of the crypt. She grabbed the handle and started to push it shut, the old iron giving a complaining creak as the hinges were put to work, but then she hesitated. She raised her head from her task and looked around the room furtively then turned her disturbed gaze back outside, her eyes searching for something beyond the heavy metal grate. Finally, she turned back to the boys.

"Where's the colonel?"

"...I don't know, I thought he was right behind us." Al said uneasily, stepping forward to peer out of the gate in the direction that they had just come.

The lieutenant cursed and pulled out the other gun that she had holstered at her hip before they'd left Mustang's apartment. She offered it to Ed soberly.

"Do you know how to use this?"

"No, but I'm sure that I can figure it out..." he replied, tentatively reaching for the offered gun. It was heavier than he'd expected it to be and nearly dropped it, earning himself a distressed look from Hawkeye.

"If anything tries to get in here, shoot it." She told the boys, "I'll be right back."

Both of the Elrics nodded to her and she reloaded her other gun with expert speed, stepping back out into the fog. "Lock the gate." She ordered, then turned and ran. Within seconds her sprinting shape was gone, swallowed by the thick grey mist that blanketed the ground and Ed and Al were left alone with the thrashing, keening bodies of their fallen allies.


	9. Death

**((A/N: I AM SO SORRY FOR THE DELAY!!! I had to stop updating because the host of the contest informed me that I wasn't supposed to be x-posting the fic anywhere, so she asked me (very politely, I must add) to change the title and stop updating until the contest was over. **

**Once again, I'm VERY SORRY! Here are the last 2 chapters.))**

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He felt like he was having a heart attack.

Roy lay where he had fallen, his eyes wide and over-bright with pain as he clutched his arm to his chest and struggled to breathe in the burnt-flesh-tainted air. The scorched bodies of his undead attackers were strewn around him in smoking pieces, fouling the air and making it even harder for him to suck oxygen into his laboring lungs. He wasn't even sure if he'd gotten them all... but at this point he didn't really care. There was nothing that he'd be able to do about it anyway.

He had just been running behind the boys and Riza, guarding their backs from the approaching horde. He'd snapped fire at the zombie-things madly, feeling each reaction take a little more from his already-weakened body. But no... he thought he could handle it. _Just a few more. Come on, Roy, keep going._ ...then, as he'd targeted the last few of the lurching monstrosities and set them ablaze, his heart stopped.

It had literally _stopped_.

He'd just stood there for a moment, absorbing the strange emptiness that filled him as the heart which had been pounding so hard just seconds before fell completely motionless. It felt as if someone had taken a vice to his ribcage and had wound it as tightly as it would go. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't move.

The ground had rushed up to meet him as he pitched forward and he fell _hard_. What little breath that remained in his frozen lungs was knocked out with the force of his landing. Jolted by the violence of his collapse, his heart shuddered and started up again, jerking erratically in his chest like an epileptic bird. It was almost as if half of his body wanted to give up and die, but the other half chided, "Not yet. We still have work to do."

He gasped and choked, his face pressed against the ground so that he inhaled dirt and ashes from the charred bodies around him. A cold, bitter pain spread through his chest as if he'd been stabbed with a shard of ice and it was all he could do to stay conscious. He didn't even try to get up. He knew that there was no way that he could make it to the crypt under his own power. He just couldn't run anymore.

_This is it._ he thought to himself, quietly accepting his own death as he panted savagely through the pain in his chest, which nearly equaled the agony in his arm. _My _god_, I've failed again. I've failed everyone._

He let his eyes fall half-closed, watching a drop of condensation slide down a blade of grass that was bent in front of his face. The mist-dampened grass beneath him was starting to soak through his clothes, but he was thankful for it; his fever had spiked considerably and the cool wetness was almost soothing. There were worse ways to die... by comparison, this probably wasn't all that bad. Besides, it's not like they'd have to take him very far to bury him. He gave a tiny, half-hysterical burst of laughter at that last thought, then winced as the bitter mirth shot pain through his chest.

Movement caught the corner of Roy's eye and he lifted his head slightly to look.

_Fuck_.

There were more of them. They were so close that Roy was surprised that he hadn't noticed them sooner. They were emerging from the fog, their outlines made fuzzy by the ethereal mists as they moved toward him, their feet dragging the ground.

Roy's unbalanced heart pounded hard, each unhealthy beat slamming his ribcage with pain. While he had accepted that he was dying, he did _not_ relish the idea of being eaten alive. With some effort he raised his trembling hand and aimed, pressing his fingers together in preparation. He knew that he wouldn't be able to hit them from this distance... not while being as exhausted as he was. He had to wait for them to get closer before he could have any chance of taking them out.

_Closer... closer, you motherfuckers..._

And closer they came... but they weren't really headed directly at him. A few of them looked stupidly his way, but then plodded on, uninterested. Roy fell completely still, silently watching this parade of death file past him, trying not to gag on their stench. They didn't care about him. Perhaps he was too close to death to pique their interests; perhaps his flesh was already too spoiled for them to enjoy. Whatever the case, they passed him up with hardly a backward glance, no doubt in search of more savory prey.

"That's right you cowards..." Roy rasped after them giddily, a bitter, vaguely delusional grin curling the corner of his mouth as he watched them proceed back into the fog, "...you'd _better_ run."

Hearing him speak, one of the creatures stopped and turned its head, sniffing the air. Roy cursed under his breath and went still again, covertly watching the thing as it shuffled back toward him. A frigid, paralyzing fear took hold of Roy then, freezing him to the ground. His mind told him to fry the thing, but his body would not comply with that frantic command. The zombie's fetid odor was overpowering as it lowered itself down next to Roy, so close that the colonel could hear it snorting air in through its nose, sniffing him out.

Its hand ghosted forward and pawed curiously at the colonel's unbandaged arm, the cold clamminess of its fingers sending a shock of horrified adrenaline coursing through Roy's body. He jerked away and rolled onto his back, dragging himself backward until he hit something. Roy gave a strangled curse and glanced over his shoulder at the largish tombstone that he'd run into.

The thing was watching him confusedly, as if trying to figure out whether or not Roy was edible. After a short pause, the thing started toward him again, crawling on hands-and-knees like some kind of malformed dog. Roy brought his gloved hand up again and readied himself, knowing that he would probably only have one chance to kill this thing. He took a deep breath, pulling the thick, frosty air into his chest painfully and snapped his fingers.

Nothing happened.

Roy exhaled harshly and tried again with the same result. He looked down at the glove and cursed again, suddenly realizing what was wrong. The dampness of the grass had soaked into the glove, making it impossible for him to create a spark with it. He sat back against the tombstone, watching the zombie's slow progression through wide eyes as his mind raced. He'd grabbed both of his gloves on his way out the door out of habit and the other one was still nestled in his pocket. He reached for it, but as he did so his fingers brushed up against something just as good.

His gun. In his terror and weakened half-delirium, he'd entirely forgotten that he had it on him. He drew it quickly and aimed at the creature, clumsily pulling the trigger before he'd even steadied himself. The shot went low and the bullet buried itself in the thing's chest, tearing through the breast pocket of its uniform. A small shower of glossy paper tumbled from the torn pocket and littered the ground. The thing scarcely even noticed.

Roy froze. The fallen papers were warped and discolored from being enclosed in a dank coffin for so long, but the colonel immediately recognized them as photographs. Worse, Roy quickly identified the face of the little girl depicted in those precious pictures.

The colonel raised his eyes back up to the undead perversion in front of him, slowly recognizing exactly who was crawling toward him. He didn't have his glasses on, and his face had become distorted by death... but there was no denying that it was him. He had that same long nose, those broad shoulders, that strong jaw...

"Oh... Maes..." Roy moaned, staring in grief-stricken horror at the reanimated corpse of his best friend. The thing continued forward as if Roy hadn't spoken at all, giving no reaction to the name that it had carried in life. The colonel gritted his teeth and leveled the gun again, focusing in on Maes' familiar—yet so _warped_—face. His hand shook badly, but the creature was so close now—perhaps only a foot or so away from the mouth of the gun—that Roy knew that he would not miss, no matter how badly he trembled. His finger tensed on the trigger, twitching and ready to fire...

But then he lowered the gun. He couldn't do it.

He knew that the creature before him was not really Maes Hughes anymore, but... god... it was too much. This was all too _fucking _much for the colonel to handle. Not this. Not him. Not now. Not on top of everything else.

With his finger still tight against the trigger, Roy turned the gun on himself, shoving the cold barrel into his own mouth. If he was going to die anyway, then he was going to take control of his own death. He would rather die by his own hand than at the hand of his friend's undead body, or the hand of any of the other fallen soldiers that were prowling around the cemetery. _This_ is how it would end: his body next to Maes', the two of them corpses together.

The gun's barrel clacked unsettlingly against Roy's teeth as he trembled with fear, fatigue, and a terrible sort of relief. Yes... it would be over. Everything would be over. The pain would be over. The guilt would be over. The hate, the self-loathing, the terror, the arrogance, the manic laughter, the sidelong glances... all of it, gone. He would end it. He would end it _now_.

He closed his eyes and braced himself.

The echo of the gunshot sang across the open cemetery. The sound ricocheted off of the smooth headstones until it was swallowed by the oppressive fog and faded into silence. A small flock of birds from a nearby tree were spooked by the noise and flapped heavenward, quickly disappearing into the low grey sky.

Roy's glanced up in surprise as the un-Maes pitched sideways onto the grass in front of him, a perfectly round bullet-hole suddenly leaking fluid from between its milky eyes. The colonel raised his head and saw someone standing over him. Her usually tidy hair was disheveled so that the tangled strands seemed to wreathe her head like a golden halo and her wild eyes flashed the color of old blood as she looked down upon him.

"Take that out of your mouth!" Hawkeye barked, sounding undeniably like a mother scolding her child.

He complied blankly, his thoughts too scattered and startled to do much else.

She went down on her knees beside him and pushed his sweat- and mist-sodden hair out of his fever-glazed eyes.

"Why didn't you just shoot it?" she asked him angrily, her gaze furtively roaming his bone-weary body for any new injuries.

"It... it's Hughes." he managed, turning his attention back to the corpse. "I just... I couldn't."

Hawkeye looked over at the thing and went still. Roy could tell without looking at her that she recognized him as well, in spite of the disquieting pallor of his cold skin, in spite of the haunting film of death that covered his eyes... and in spite of the bullet hole that she had just put in his face. The woman beside him was silent for a moment, but then she shook herself, resting her hand of Roy's shoulder and squeezing hard.

"It's not him, though." she said softly, "Not anymore. It's just an empty shell."

"I know that, it's just..." Roy tried to explain, but his throat constricted painfully and cut off the words. Hot tears blurred his view of Maes' corpse for a moment, but he managed to blink them back before they could spill over. "...I just can't believe that I fucked up this badly. I never... never meant for any of this to happen."

"We know, Roy. It was an accident... but we still have to fix it." She encouraged quietly, then took his uninjured arm and draped it over her back, wrapping her own arm around him and forcing him onto his feet. "So come on, let's go. You aren't allowed to give up yet, Colonel. Not on my watch."

Roy heaved a loud sigh of mock-irritation to cover his suddenly heavy heart and allowed her to be his crutch, half-leading, half-carrying him back in the toward the crypt.

"What would I be without you?" he asked, finding the strength to smirk at her.

"Dead, probably."

He laughed quietly at that, then gritted his teeth against the sharp twinge in his chest and sobered himself. He did not tell her how close to death he actually was... She'd find out soon enough.

They walked very slowly, every step agony for Roy. He could tell that she wanted to go faster, but she didn't press him. Even at this slow pace with Hawkeye supporting him he was struggling to breathe. He was beyond exhausted; there wasn't even a word for how he felt right now. As they topped a small hill, Roy gasped and hit his knees, unable to go any further.

"We have to keep going." Hawkeye said, trying and failing to keep the increasing concern out of her voice.

Roy shook his head and leaned his forehead against her hip, too preoccupied with his crucial need for oxygen to give any sort of vocal reply.

"No, I mean we need to go _now_!" she emphasized, pointing. Roy looked up and saw lumbering shapes approaching them though his pain-blurred eyes. There were a lot of them... thirty, maybe more. Regardless, there were far more than Hawkeye and Roy could take on by themselves, especially with the colonel in his current state.

Hawkeye crouched and tried to heft Roy back onto his feet. "Come on, sir!"

"L-leave me, just go." he panted.

"Like hell! Get up!"

"I _can't_, Riza."

She stared at him for a moment, terror making her mouth a tight line of anxiety. She glanced back over at the approaching crowd of hungry monsters then seemed to make a decision. Hawkeye grabbed Roy, hefted him over her shoulder, lifted him off the ground, and staggered to her feet. Roy gave an indignant yelp as his sluggish mind realized that she was _carrying_ him and running as quickly as she could back toward the crypt.

"I th-think that there's something inherently wrong with this..." he told her, clutching the back of her shirt to help him stay balanced. Her shoulder was digging into his gut, but he thought better of trying to find a more comfortable position.

"Don't distract me." She gasped, trying to go faster. "You're heavier than you look."

Roy smirked bitterly and resigned himself to her care. He knew that this was the only way he was going to make it back to the crypt alive. And Hawkeye was right: he still had work to do...

He could not succumb to death just yet.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Ed stood with his back pressed against Al, facing the coffin-captive zombies. As of yet, no more of the things had broken out, but they were sure as hell trying. The caskets lining the wall creaked and groaned as their shifting, thrashing occupants tried to push their way out, filling the room with the haunting sounds of their struggle. Ed shuddered and turned his gaze back outside, hoping desperately to see the two officers returning.

As his eyes scanned the fog, though, there was still no sign of them.

Ed sighed and rubbed his face with one hand, awkwardly holding the gun with the other. He was exhausted and cold. The sweatpants that he was wearing were warm enough, but the oversized t-shirt was thin and did little to protect him from the morning chill. The urge to just lay down on the ground, curl into a ball and go to sleep was almost overpowering, even with the hideous zombie-things only a few feet away.

"I see something!" Al said suddenly. Ed jumped and looked back out the gate, puzzling over the odd, hulking shape that was lurching nearer out of the fog. As it got closer, though, Ed cursed and Al quickly moved to open the gate. Hawkeye stumbled into the room, her burden of the colonel heavy on her shoulder. Once inside, she put Mustang down and steadied him when he wavered on his feet.

Once he regained his balance, Mustang rushed over urgently and pulled closed the dark metal grate that blocked the entrance. That done, the colonel staggered and hit his knees, panting heavily in the dank crypt as he clutched his arm tightly to his chest and doubled over. The colonel vomited harshly, his back heaving as his stomach unearthed little more than digestive foam and yellow bile. He wiped his mouth on the back of his arm exhaustedly and raised his head, averting his eyes from Hawkeye's knowing stare as she knelt down beside him.

Once again Ed was hit with the inexplicable knowledge that something was terribly wrong with the man. And it wasn't just that he was sick... that much was obvious. Ed watched Mustang struggle to his feet and brace himself weakly against the wall... then suddenly the truth slammed into him like a clenched fist to the gut.

"You were bitten..." Ed moaned softly, finally understanding why Mustang had so vividly reminded him of the woman on the street; he was just one step away from _becoming_ her. Al gasped and turned to stare at the man, the quiet, horrified sound echoing in his armor. Mustang's bleary eyes flashed back and forth between them for a moment, but then he nodded and brushed his sweat-soaked hair out of his face. He was clearly not going to let himself dwell on it.

"Let's get this over with." the colonel rasped dismissively, pushing himself away from the wall, "I'm not sure how much longer I have."

He steadied himself with a deep breath and fished in his pocket for his felt-tipped pen. The colonel uncapped the pen and fixed his tired, but resolute gaze on Edward.

This was it.

"NO!" Al shouted, grabbing Ed and dragging him away from Mustang. "There _must_ be some other way..."

"There isn't." Mustang and Ed told him in unison.

Al gave a quiet sob and, knowing that he couldn't win, let his brother go. Mustang pulled Ed gently away from Al and led him back over to Hawkeye.

"I need your help again, Lieutenant." he said softly. He paused for a beat, then abruptly grabbed her wrists and wrapped her arms around Ed, locking the boy in her strong embrace. "Riza, if you let him go I swear to god that I'll come back to haunt you." he added savagely, making sure that she had a firm hold on Ed before turning back toward Al.

"Wait, what are you...?" Ed asked, confused. If Ed was to be sacrificed, shouldn't he be helping with the transmutation...?

Mustang handed the pen to Al and took off his shirt. "Alphonse, I need a circle here, here, and here." he said authoritatively pointing to each of his shoulders and then to his chest.

"No..." Ed breathed, finally understanding. "No, you idiot! Use me!"

"Come on, Alphonse." Mustang ordered when Al balked in surprised. "I don't have all day."

"Don't do it, Al! You know that it should be me and not him!"

Al hesitated for only a moment, then bent forward and began to draw on Mustang's shoulder, just above a white band of cloth that looked like a tourniquet of some kind. Ed struggled and screamed in Hawkeye's grasp, but she was far stronger than he was in his current state.

"Quickly, Al." Mustang pressed quietly, his eyes straying to one of the rocking coffins on the wall. The inhabitant broke its hand through a hole in the wood and reached blindly for them, making quiet animal noises.

"Mustang, you stupid son of a bitch! You don't have to do this!" Ed screeched, struggling harder.

"This is my mistake, Ed!" Mustang shouted back, finally losing his grip on his calm composure. "You said yourself that I have to fix this, so shut your fucking mouth and stay out of it!"

"You jerk, you know that I didn't mean it like this!" Ed shot back desperately.

"It was my fault that you were killed to begin with, and I will NOT stand by and watch you die again because of me! It's Equivalent Exchange, Fullmetal... and I owe far too much."

Ed stopped struggling, too tired to continue his fight against the lieutenant. She held him against her so tightly that he could feel her rapid heartbeat through his back. She was terrified. She didn't want this anymore than Ed did, but she had been given an order. Mustang was watching her, his face made carefully expressionless as Al finished drawing and stepped backward.

Mustang thanked him softly, then shot Ed one last, unfathomable glance. He crossed his arms over his chest like a corpse, his fingertips brushing the transmutation circles on each shoulder.

"Colonel, please..." Ed begged.

The colonel smirked at him as if about to say something, but then shook his head and closed his eyes.

Instantly, light erupted from Mustang's body, enveloping him blindingly in a cold white radiance. The colonel tossed his head back and gasped, wide-eyed as the power coursed through him, tearing him, absorbing him, claiming him as its own. Ed's hysterical screams were drowned out by the static, electric sound of the alchemic surge, the noise rising in pitch until it burst outward in a ring of power that expanded out from Mustang like a supernova.

Ed bent double in Hawkeye's arms and gasped in surprise as he felt each and every one of the undead creatures stop existing. They just... _disappeared_ from inside of him. They left a hollow void in him that was quickly filled by relief and he gave a sharp, pained laugh in spite of himself. They were gone. The corpse that had been reaching out from its coffin fell limp, its grayish, twig-like fingers becoming still and lifeless once more.

What remained of Mustang's body hit the floor hard and lay motionless, making no attempt to get up as the ethereal light around him faded and died.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Someone was calling his name. Screaming it, really, but it sounded as if it was coming from very far away. With some effort, Roy cracked open his eyes and looked at the person who was addressing him.

Hawkeye was kneeling close to him, her small, yet powerful hands trying to hold closed the red void where his arm used to be. In spite of her efforts though, blood spurted from between her fingers and spilled onto the floor in a rapidly widening puddle.

"Hi." he greeted her dazedly.

"...H-hi." she said back, her voice tremulous and panicked.

"Don't move, Colonel!" another voice said from Roy's other side. The colonel rolled his head to the side and saw Ed wrenching the alchemy glove from Roy's only remaining hand. The boy slid it onto his own hand shakily. "I need to burn your wound closed, so just tell me what to do..."

Roy looked at him blearily and closed his eyes again. He was too exhausted to bother. If this is what it felt like to die, then it wasn't really all that bad; he didn't know what Ed had been bitching about... The blood flowing around him was warm and his wounds scarcely hurt at all. _This_ was certainly much better than dying in the cemetery or being eaten.

"No! Come on, stay awake, Colonel! How do I direct the fire?"

Again, Roy stayed silent, tiredly appreciating the irony of the role-reversal of _Ed_ attempting to cauterize _his_ wounds. As if he could really teach the boy fire alchemy in just a few seconds. Impertinent little brat.

"He's too far gone, Ed." Hawkeye rasped urgently, "You're just going to have to try by yourself."

Ed made a tiny, frightened noise, but then Roy heard the distinct sound of snapping fingers and he was touched with a sudden, searing heat that stole what consciousness that he had left and dragged him down into blackness.

Then there was silence.


	10. See Me After Class

The fuehrer stood impressively, tall, erect, and imposing as he looked out the window with his one remaining eye. He was a contrastingly dark figure in the impossible whiteness of the room, and when he finally spoke his words were just as somber as his shadowed form.

"So you're telling me..." King Bradley began, "that you don't know how you were resurrected? You have no idea what happened?"

"Yes, sir." Edward said in stiff reply.

"And I'm also to assume that you are also in the dark about why—out of all the bodies that had been reanimated—you are the only one that did not return to a corpse when Colonel Mustang sacrificed himself to kill them all?"

Ed shrugged one shoulder at the fuehrer, making his face completely blank and innocent. "I don't know why, sir... but my hypothesis is that it's because I had been dead for a much shorter time than most of the... others. I still had my mind and my soul when I was brought back while they were just empty. Maybe that's why I was able to hold myself together."

"I see." Bradley said, then turned away from the window and let his gaze land upon the figure in the hospital bed, adding. "You really need to teach him to lie better."

Mustang sat up a little straighter—although it clearly pained him to do so—and met the fuehrer's dark eye evenly, but did not say anything.

"Oh, give me _some_ credit, Colonel..." Bradley said in an almost companionable way, "Don't think that I don't know what you did. And honestly, I'm not really sure what I'm going to do about it. I don't know whether to commend you or strip you of your station and throw you in prison. The latter would certainly involve less paperwork."

"I wouldn't blame you if you did, sir." Mustang said stoically, his voice warped slightly by the oxygen mask covering his mouth and nose. "I know the penalties for my actions and I will dutifully accept them."

Bradley sighed and put his hands in his pockets, looking at the colonel with his head tilted slightly to the side. "Every time I think I have you figured out, you go and completely change my outlook." He paused a moment thoughtfully, then continued, "I'm not going to ask you what happened, nor do I want you to tell anyone else. As far as you're concerned, something else raised the dead and you just put a stop to it. That's all anyone needs to know. If nothing else, this incident proves to me what a valuable asset you are to this county. You are a powerful man, and I'd like to keep you that way."

"You flatter me, sir."

"I may not be an alchemist Mustang, but I am well aware that no one has ever performed a successful resurrection before." Bradley went on, his eye wandering over to Ed and examining him with such depth that a chill ran down the kid's spine. "He's perfect, and the fact that you were able to do that... and so much more... is reason enough to keep you around. So, if you shut your mouth about this, I'll shut mine and this whole fiasco will blow over in a week. Do we have an accord?"

"...Of course, Fuehrer."

Bradley's mouth twitched into a warm smile, although the warmth of it did not reach his dangerous eye. "Good! Then with that said, I'll leave you alone and let you get back to recuperating."

Mustang awkwardly gave the fuehrer a left-handed salute as the tall man headed for the door to the small hospital room. He opened it and was greeted by his guards. "One more thing, Colonel..." he said, half-turning before he stepped out the door.

"Yes, sir?"

"...If you ever pull anything like this again, I will execute you myself."

"Understood, sir."

And with that, the fuehrer gave a little wave and stepped out the door, closing it firmly behind him.

Mustang exhaled harshly as if he'd been holding his breath and eased himself back down onto the bed, wincing as he accidentally put pressure on his arm-stump.

"He could have at least waited for you to get out of the hospital before calling a meeting and interrogating us like that." Ed mumbled, still glowering at the closed door that Bradley had just passed through.

"Well, it could have been a lot worse." Mustang replied tiredly, letting his eyes fall shut for a moment. "At least he's willing to cover it all up... although it's probably more for his sake than for ours. It can't be very good for his posterity to have long-dead military officials littering the streets of his city."

"Yeah, I guess so..." Ed sighed and rubbed his face with his hands. It had been nearly four days since he'd been brought back and—although he did feel much better—he still felt weak and tired all the time. He couldn't complain though, for Mustang was certainly much worse off.

By the time that Ed, Al, and Hawkeye had been able to get Mustang to the hospital, he had already stopped breathing. It was only through the miracle of modern medicine that the man was still alive at all, but even medicine can only fix so much. It was going to be a long time before Mustang could leave this hospital. Losing an arm is certainly a harsh thing for a body to go through, but when that body is already locked in a fierce battle against a deadly and unknown infection, the outcome is not going to be good.

Several of his organs had been damaged by the infection and the blood loss, turning his pale skin a sickly yellow color and gracing him with intermittent fevers that wracked his struggling body with chills. The doctors said that he was going to be fine in the long run, but his recovery was going to be a hard and winding road. Oddly enough though, losing his arm probably saved his life since it cut off the source of the infection and forced him to expel a great deal of tainted blood.

And then on top of everything else were the burns. Ed had tried to control the fire as he sealed Mustang's arm, but it had gotten away from him in spite of his best efforts. The colonel now had long, jagged burns across his chest that varied in severity and size—some of which had been so bad that he'd needed skin grafts to replace the charred tissue. Mustang's neck was also a mess of singed flesh, but luckily it was not as bad as his chest and his side.

To put it succinctly, Mustang was in pretty bad shape... but, god, it could have been so much worse. Ed had fully expected Mustang to be completely absorbed by the alchemic reaction, but in retrospect it made sense that he'd only needed to sacrifice the one arm; it certainly takes less energy to _undo_ something than it does to _do_ it... bringing something back to life is almost infinitely more taxing than just taking that life away again. It looked like, for once, Equivalent Exchange was in their favor.

"Stop looking at me like that." Mustang rasped.

Ed blinked. He hadn't realized that he'd been so openly staring at Mustang, his concerned eyes wandering over the colonel's sallow face. Mustang had opened his heavy, bloodshot eyes again and was returning Ed's gaze with a slight expression of irritation.

"Hm." Ed intoned, shaking himself and forcedly changing his expression from worried to playful, "I was just thinking that if you ever lost your left leg, we'd be a matching set. We could go on tour! 'Come see the Amazing Alchemist Amputees! It'll be an instant hit!"

Mustang laughed amusedly, but the sound was so weak and grating that it was almost painful to hear. "But that would never work, you'd have to grow a few feet taller before we could _ever_ be considered a matching set."

"...Who are you calling small?!"

"_You_, clearly."

Ed snarled at him and the colonel laughed again, smirking as he closed his eyes. The nurses had come in to inject Mustang with various drugs just before the fuehrer came in, and Ed could see that the colonel had been valiantly fighting against the narcotic effects during the meeting. Now that the meeting was done with, however, the pull of the drugs was visibly becoming harder for him to resist. He would probably be asleep within the next few minutes.

"I should go." Ed said softly, daring to reach forward and brush away a few strands of hair that fever had plastered to Mustang's clammy forehead. The colonel nodded silently, but as Ed turned to go he spoke up.

"Wait... I have something of yours."

Ed turned back and arched his eyebrow at him questioningly. Mustang made a half-hearted attempt to sit up again, but failed and decided instead to point vaguely at a small pile of books on the bedside table. Ed picked up the top one and glared at it. It was the fire alchemy book from a few months ago that he'd tried without success to master.

"Alphonse gave it to me, but since you're alive you should probably have it back. You certainly need the practice."

Ed shot him a dirty look and cracked the book open, scanning his eyes over the pages. He'd almost forgotten about this thing... truth be told, he wished that he really _had_ forgotten about it entirely. This dumb book was nothing but a source of frustration and multiple burn-scars. Still, he supposed that he could give it another try...

He flipped through and stopped when he saw his own handwriting on one of the blank pages used for working out theorems. Beside his own writing though, was another script written a little lopsidedly in red pen.

_**Wrong.**_ One part said, scrawled beside an arrow pointing to an equation.

_**Nope, try again.**_Another bit encouraged patronizingly. Ed turned to other pages in the book and saw that similar messages were written wherever he had made notes in the margins or doodled transmutation circles.

_**Wrong, wrong, wrong...**_

_**Does this really make sense to you, Fullmetal?**_

_**Come on, kid, use your head.**_

The corrections were everywhere Ed realized as he turned to the back of the book. On the very last page, Mustang had written:

_**D+ **_

_**See me after class.**_

_**...and remember, Ed: you'll never learn anything if you don't ask questions.**_

Ed stared down at that last part, unsure of whether to be insulted or touched by Mustang's sidelong offer to coach him in fire alchemy. He raised his head, about to say something clever like "I don't need your help, you conceited old jerk!" but instead he shut his mouth and sighed.

Mustang was out like a light, his brow furrowed slightly in a gentle frown of far-off discomfort. Ed smirked at him, letting go of his brief, lackadaisical irritation and closing the book softly. He tucked the thing under his arm and opened the door quietly, taking one last look over his shoulder before he flicked off the lights and exited, still smirking.


End file.
